Chapter Text
“Go, go, go!” Sabine yelled over the blaster fire. She took another shot, knocking a trooper off the bridge and into the dark cavern below. “Spectre-2! Close the hatch and get ready to fly.”
“On it,” Hera’s voice crackled through the com.
Sabine steadied herself against the ship wall. This was supposed to be quick and simple. Head in, grab a few crates of food and fuel, fly out. Unfortunately, this quick and simple plan had not accounted for the imperial officer sulking by the fuel canisters, or Zeb’s insistence on stealing several extra Meiloorun fruits from right under said officer’s nose.
“Don’t you close the door on me!” Zeb growled, ducking as shots flew over his head. A blaster bolt hit a Meiloorun, the insides splattering across Zeb and the troopers behind him. He scowled, and leapt from the bridge into the belly of the ship, rolling to a stop near Sabine.
Sabine took another shot. “Alright Hera, close it!”
The ship jolted, lifting away from the imperial base and into the sky, the ramp lifting slowly into the ship. Blaster shots rained through the slim opening. Come on, Sabine willed. Close! Just-
A series of thuds rang out through the ship as something tumbled through the sliver of the hatch still open. Something- someone, was wrapped inside a dark bundle and crumpled on the floor.
“Crickey!” Zeb yelled, standing up. “Is that an imperial?”
Sabine shook her head. “I don’t think so, Zeb.”
Footsteps came down the hallway as Hera and Kanan rushed in, Chopper in tow.
“I didn’t know we were expecting a visitor,” Kanan said, looking inquisitively at the body.
Sabine crossed her arms, taking a step closer. “Yeah, neither did we.”
The figure groaned, and what was now discernable as the head turned towards the rebels, still shrouded in brown. Hera and Kanan locked eyes, Sabine’s hand rested on her blaster.
“Well hello there, what brings you to the Ghost?”
There was something odd about the way the figure responded. Like maybe something buried deep inside them had shoved its way to the surface. Their hand reached up, slowly, and made a slash through the air, before pointing to their throat.
Zeb threw up his hands. “Oh swell, the stranger in our ship can’t even talk to defend himself.”
Chopper beeped an agreement.
Hera waved her hand dismissively. “Oh hush. Zeb, go get a tablet he can write on.” She turned back to the figure.
Zeb returned, and she passed the tablet to the figure. “Who do you work for?”
Nobody, the figure scrawled.
Sabine cocked her head. “So that doesn’t explain why you were falling from the sky.”
The figure picked up the tablet again.
You’re right.
Hera sighed. “Well, we’re always trying to help. If you need transport somewhere we’ll try and make it happen. Just write it on the tablet.”
The figure shook his head frantically, and scribbled on the tablet, before holding it out to Hera. Sabine moved to her side, leaning down. The words, sloppy and hasty, read I want to help.
Kanan glanced over. “What does it say,” he said apprehensively.
Hera huffed. “It says he wants to help.”
It hadn’t occurred to Sabine until now, but he, whoever he was, probably couldn’t see very well from under the hood. She noticed, however, that his whole body seemed to be locked in on Kanan, his eyes following him like a hawk.
“Well,” Sabine said, pushing past that thought, “I say we let him help.”
“Ah, yes!” Kanan butted in hastily. “Yes, he can stay in Ezra’s room.”
Hera looked over at Kanan in surprise, but nodded. “Alright then, it’s settled. Zeb, show him the room.
Zeb nodded stiffly, and helped the figure up. “I don’t like this,” he whispered as he passed Hera.
Zeb led the man out of the room. “You’re staying in the kid’s room with me, he’s out with Ashoka on a mission-” The bang of the door rang out through the room.
“He can stay here? Really? Without a second of talk about it? We don’t even know who he is!”
“I know, but I-”
“Listen, I’m glad you did what you did, but consult me first Kanan!”
“I know but I-”
“You what?”
“I had a feeling.”
. . . _ . _ . _ . . _ _ . _ . _ . . . .
The door shut behind Zeb with a thud, causing Ezra to jolt. He had forgotten how loud that door was.
What an odd thing to forget.
He glanced around the room. Everything was left as he remembered, if a little bit messier. His bunk, with the orange backdrop he used to stare at when the fear of nightmares overruled the want for sleep. The scuff marks on the walls interrupted the dull metal that comprised the room. Nearly every surface was covered in weapons or clothes or empty snack containers. The whole place reeked of him, his past self that is.
“Hah,” he laughed, pushing the hood off. It felt nice to make sound again, he had been trying so hard to not let anyone recognize his voice. His head fell into his hands, his hysterical giggles bouncing around the room. Nothing about today had gone like he had expected when he had woken this morning on Tarfouth.
He hadn’t meant to find it again, the World Between Worlds. He hadn’t meant to do a freefall through time and end up back here.
But oh well, it worked out for him, didn’t it? He wasn’t stuck alone on some nowhere that’s not even technically part of the other rim anymore, was he? Nope!
And Kanan- Kanan was alive here. And seeing. And Sabine and Zeb and Hera were just feet away.
See, this would all be a lot simpler if not for the kriffing timeline. He wished he could just stay.
Alas, Ezra remembered what mission younger Ezra was on right now, and there was no strange man on board the Ghost when he came back. It would probably be bad if there was.
So that left him with… three weeks, give or take, to get off the Ghost and back to Tarfouth, in his time.
Of course… he could always… break the timeline….
But that was probably a no-go in the handbook of oddly specific Jedi Rules, and despite all, Ezra Bridger was still a Jedi.
Kanan couldn’t know what would happen to him. No one aboard this ship could find out who he was. This was his new mission. To hide in plain sight and do as much good as he could while he was stuck here.
And he would call it Operation Armadillo.
He’d known an armadillo once, she lived outside the communications tower and would hide whenever someone other than Ezra got near. He had named her Cosmos. She was a fantastic Armadillo.
A knock sounded on the door. Ezra hurriedly pulled his hood down as it slid open.
Hera stood in the doorway, a bundle of clothes in her arms. “I brought you some things. They’re some I picked up for Kanan forever ago, but he hated them, so we might as well put them to use.”
Ezra nodded. Thanks, he scribbled. His handwriting looked like a toddler’s, but Hera seemed to find it readable.
“You’re welcome. There’s another mission tonight, if you really want to help. You might need this.”
She held out a blaster, slim and worn, with a switch on the side firmly stuck to stun. He reached out, waiting a second to see if this was some kind of test, before picking it up and sliding it into his make-shift Tarfouthian robe.
“We head out at seven. Do you need anything else?”
He thought for a second, then pulled out his tablet. If he was going to keep his identity hidden, he was going to need more than a hood.
I want to keep my face covered. Helmet?
Hera looked down, looked up, and nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
The door shut with a bang, and Ezra swept his hood off of his head. He put the blaster down. It made him miss his lightsaber. Over a year, he would guess, had passed since he left it with Sabine.
Really, if Ezra was being truthful with himself, (which he rarely enjoyed being), it was not a top-notch idea for him to jump right into a mission, weakened and emotionally distraught and hungry-
Ooo, he was hungry. Did he still have those snack packets? He shoved his forearm under his pillow. “Jackpot.”
The bag he pulled out was crinkled and yellow, with green squiggly letters scrawled across the top spelling out “funyuns”. They had picked up a crate on a mission months before, supposedly full of ammo, that had instead been full of these: addictive, strange goodness.
He stuffed four of them into his mouth. When he was burned they’d find Funyun dust mixed with his ashes.
How long had it been since he’d had food like this, or a proper sonic shower-
Ooo, he needed a shower too.
All the things that hadn’t been readily available to him on Tarfouth came rushing back. He wanted a shower. He wanted guaranteed clean water. He wanted bug repellent. He wanted toothpaste. He suddenly felt very nasty.
He grabbed Kanan’s clothes, threw up his hood, and snuck to the ‘fresher.
Thirty minutes later, he was cleaner than he’d been in well over a year. He smelled normal for once, and his hair had lost the layer of grease that had been building up for weeks now.
Hey, he had twenty-one days away from Tarfouth, he was going to exploit them.
. . . _ . _ . _ . . _ _ . _ . _ . . . .
Kanan walked in through the doorway, and paused.
“Uhh,” Kanan asked, eyebrows raised, “Hera, why is our guest in a bedazzled stormtrooper helmet?”
Sabine laughed, sliding her gun into its holster. “He appreciates my craftsmanship, why else?”
Hera rolled her eyes, “Our guest wanted to keep his face covered, and we are all going to respect that.”
Kanan looked over at the new guy, standing in the corner of the bridge. He was leaning against the wall, his head turning slightly in the very sparkly helmet as he followed the conversation.
A small gun sat on his hip, complimenting a simple blue shirt, a gray jacket, and brown pants. The whole outfit looked as a whole like a messy collage, but the stranger didn’t seem to be complaining. It looked a lot more comfortable than the ratty cloak he’d shown up in, anyway.
Something was off about the stranger, and Kanan didn’t mean the way the force hugged his skin and swirled in his mind. No, there was something else, maybe in the way he looked at Kanan like he knew something about him, maybe in the strength of his mental walls. Kanan knew that he was the one to tell the stranger to stay, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t on high alert.
Kanan prayed to the force that it had led him well. He wasn’t blind, He saw how easily this stranger could undo months of rebellion work.
He wished, quietly, that Ezra was here to read this guy.
He just had to get through this mission. Then he’d figure everything out.
Kanan tuned back into the conversation.
“He looks like a unicorn poo,” Zeb was saying.
“Are you questioning my artistic abilities?”
Zeb took a step forward. “Yeah, quite frankly, I am..”
“Alright, we’re done talking about the helmet.” Kanan decided. “Hera, mission details?”
She turned around in the pilot chair. “Of course. Rebels, today we are breaking out seven innocents from a new imperial base on Kii Lo, a moon in the Lothal system. We’ll send down the Phantom with the four of you, Chopper and I will stay on board in case of trouble. Kanan, you and the newbie will stick together. Sabine, you stay with Zeb, and keep him away from Meilooruns this time.”
“This is a test run. Kanan, you’ll be the distraction with the new guy here, so that Zeb and Sabine can slip in and slip out. Once Sabine and Zeb have got the refugees, we all head back to the ship and run. Any questions?”
Zeb raised his hand. “Uh, yeah, I’ve got a question. What code do we use for the newbie over there?” He pointed a thick finger into the face of the stranger. The stranger didn’t tense for a second.
Kanan raised an eyebrow inquisitively. “That’s… a good question actually. What do we call you?”
A small flash of emotion radiated through the force, so quickly that Kanan nearly missed it. The stranger took out his tablet and wrote Cosmos in nearly illegible handwriting.
Zeb snorted. “Cosmos, really? What are you, named after a dog?”
An Armadillo.
“Ah, I knew an armadillo once. It had rabies.”
Cosmos was a better armadillo.
“Come to think of it, the Armadillo acted a lot like Ezra.”
Sabine snorted, and Kanan coughed to cover his laugh. Cosmos did not respond.
Sabine stood up from her chair, Cosmos straightening up from where he had been leaning on the wall. “Alright,” Sabine said. “Ready to kill some imperials?”
Kanan grabbed his lightsaber and stood. “Let’s do this.”
The Moon’s atmosphere was thick, heavy, and tinted blue, laying like a blanket over the hilly imperial base. The phantom charged straight through the sea of fog like a purgil through hyperspace, Sabine at the wheel.
“It’s beautiful,” Zeb whispered.
“It’s not fun to fly through, that’s for sure,” Sabine responded.
“It’s distracting you, keep your mind on the mission.”
That bit kinda looks like a pig, Cosmos wrote, pointing to a particularly spherical patch of fog.
“Your mind is not on the mission.”
Cosmos shrugged, and leaned back in his seat. He fiddled with the jammed stun-switch on his blaster.
The landing went smoothly. They let down the Phantom behind a hill by the base. Sabine opened the hatch, looking over to Zeb.
She turned to Kanan. “When you have the distraction ready, radio us and we’ll get ‘em out.”
Kanan nodded. “Got it. Cosmos, you ready?”
Cosmos snapped up to position from where he had been watching the window and nodded.
“Good. The distraction’s simple, you’ll catch on.” He tucked his lightsaber into the clothes. “Alright everybody, move out!”
Kanan led the charge, sneaking in through an open doorway. Sabine shot a trooper through the head before breaking off to find the refugees. Cosmos caught on quicker than expected, He moved with each of Kanan’s gestures to move and kept his movements and breathing quiet.
Well, quiet-ish. He caught on better than expected, but Kanan had rock-bottom expectations.
The hallways were white and cold, carrying that gunpowder-and-sanitizer scent that seemed to linger across imperial bases. Hallways twisted around, converging in quintuplets at narrow intersections. Kanan didn’t have claustrophobia, but this base made him understand the fear.
They worked their way up to the fourth floor. Here, an event of the right size could pull the guards up to the upper levels, away from the holding cells.
They just had to make sure this distraction was a particularly magnetic one.
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered.
Eight imperial heads whipped around as Kanan stepped out into the intersection. “Sorry to interrupt fellas,” he said commandingly, “but I have a serious issue with your management style.”
Stormtrooper A (Kanan liked to give them letters) jolted. “What?! Civilians are not authorized to be in this section!” His voice came out grainy and mechanical.
Kanan stepped closer, hand conveniently covering his lightsaber. “Oh really? Alright then. You go tattle to your superior about me, and I’ll tell them about him.” Kanan jabbed his finger behind him.
Thankfully, Cosmos caught on quick, emerging into the group in his full bedazzled glory. “What do you think y’all are doing here? This is a respectable imperial establishment. Does this look like a respectable imperial man?”
Kanan glanced back at Cosmos, who shook his head. “See? Who should I report this to?”
“I- Well-” the trooper stuttered.
“No, I want answers. Who do I report this man to?”
The troopers glanced at each other, then approached Cosmos, who jerked his head stiffly towards them.
“Trooper, where did your armor go?” Trooper D asked Cosmos. Trooper F grabbed his arm gruffly. Cosmos did not respond.
Kanan gripped the hilt of his saber. If he was going to draw troopers away, it looked like he was going to need to do a little more. “With the way things are clearly being run around here, who’s to say there aren’t more like him? Call the troops up and look, will you?!”
“I’m afraid we will not,” a cold voice rang. Kanan spun on his heel to find an imperial officer, short, with straight hair and a straight face. “Restrain him.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, hey-” A blaster pressed against the back of his head, forcing him to his knees. He reached for his lightsaber.
“-And take his weapons,” the officer said.
Kanan’s heartbeat pounded. If they found his lightsaber, this whole mission was not only compromised, it was a beacon for imperial attention.
The trooper reached down to grab his saber.
A clash rang out, then two shots, and the stunned body of the stormtrooper fell down on top of him.
The trooper in front of Cosmos stiffened, before falling backwards onto the ground, revealing his crumpled partner behind him. A bead of sweat rolled from under Cosmos’ helmet.
Tension wove between the room’s inhabitants, no one daring to speak.
In slow motion, the officer creaked open his jaw to speak.
Here we go, Kanan thought.
Many things happened at once.
“Call for reinforcements, kill the rebels!” the officer screamed, shrill and desperate. Trooper G called into his com, but Kanan barely noticed, distracted by trooper E’s shot at his head. Kanan, on instinct, ignited his lightsaber with a powerful buzz, reflecting the bolt back at trooper E. Oh, and Cosmos hitched an unwilling piggyback ride on the imperial officer.
“What? Egh- Get off me you scum!”
Cosmos cocked his head, shrugged, and jumped off, shooting the officer with his stun gun instead. Trooper A shot at his shoulder, and he jumped to press himself into the wall, while Kanan focused in on the force, using it to slam trooper A into the wall. He fell down, unconscious.
“Wha-” Trooper G spluttered, “A Jedi?”
Kanan stretched out his hand and slammed trooper G into the ceiling. He fell back without another word. “What,” Kanan muttered, “The lightsaber wasn’t a big enough hint?”
Footsteps echoed throughout the halls, as lines of troopers marched towards the intersection. “At least we drew the troopers away,” Kanan called to Cosmos. Cosmos grunted, taking a graze to the elbow from an incoming stormtrooper, and accidentally knocking Trooper H out with the same elbow in the process.
Cosmos turned around, clearly surprised. Taking his chance, trooper C let out a deep roar and charged straight at Cosmos’ blind side.
Kanan’s hand acted before his brain, swinging his lightsaber straight through the oncoming stormtrooper.
A glance down the hallway told Kanan all he needed to know. He grabbed Cosmos’ good elbow and tugged. “Let’s get outta here,” he yelled in Cosmos’ ear, dodging a blast as he did so.
Cosmos nodded once and took off down the hallway with Kanan. “Spectre-5, have you secured the innocents?”
Sabine’s voice was strained. “We’re working on it! Things aren’t exactly going smoothly.”
“Yeah,” Kanan muttered. “Same here. Left.” He made a quick left turn, Cosmos at his heels. He touched his comm again. “Just get to the ship as fast as you can, new guy and I will start powering up the engines.”
“Copy that.”
Kanan skidded to a halt at the sight of troopers down the hall. Cosmos grabbed his arma nd darted in the other direction.
A few minutes later they were out the same door they’d come in through. Kanan made it to the ship first, setting the Phantom into action. The rest of the crew and the innocents came charging over the hilltop, tailed by a couple of stormtroopers.
“Start it up,” Kanan yelled to Cosmos. The phantom came alive, rumbling and humming around Kanan, “Come on!” He waved to the rest of the crew.
The refugees were spread behind Sabine and Zeb, some in little condition to be making a break for it. In particular, a mother and her baby were tagging behind the group, the mother limping while she tried to run. A blaster bolt flew past her ear.
“Kriff,” Kanan whispered. She was still meters away, and the troopers were only getting closer. He closed his eyes, stretching out his hand, and pulling with the force.
The force flashed and died away, He closed his eyes again, determined.
He could not let his panic get in the way of the force.
He could not let his panic get in the way of the force.
He could not let-
The woman lifted up and flew inside the ship. The doors closed.
“Woo,” Sabine cheered. “Let’s go Kanan!”
“Yeah,” Kanan said, his forehead creased. “Thanks.”
The force still stubbornly eluded him.
. . . _ . _ . _ . . _ _ . _ . _ . . . .
They dropped the refugees off with another, larger rebel ship a couple of hours later.
Dinner was a short and informal affair, but still a delicious one. By the time Ezra had once again cleaned himself up and eaten another packet of Funyuns, it was later than he would care to think about, and he was exhausted.
He took off his helmet, though his hood stayed on (the downside of sharing a room with Zeb). HIs bed, he admitted, was far less comfortable than he remembered., but far more comfortable than anything Tarfouth had ever had to offer him.
It only took him a few minutes to nod off, his body swaying with the rhythm of the ship and his mind deliriously thinking of Funyuns and thick, soft cushions.
He stood up back on Tarfouth, staring out over a sea of blue soil.
The air felt nonexistent, as if it was lifting off of his skin and ascending into the sky. A nitrogen patch, then. He squinted, and looked out at the rising sun, bathing everything in a deep, rich orange.
“‘To despise something means you see each of its flaws, not that you see none of its beauty.’ Do you know who said that?” A deep, calm voice rang out behind him.
Thrawn stood straight up, his hands behind his back as if he was waiting for the sky to call him into action.
Ezra looked back towards the sun, his heart pounding. “No, and I don’t care.”
Thrawn hummed, not taking his eyes off of the sky. “Funny. They’re your colors, you know.”
The orange feel closer to their toes, soaking into the blue soil and the leafy shrubs littering it..
“Yeah, and it still manages to be ugly. What are you doing here, Thrawn?”
Thrawn said nothing, then let out a deep, low chuckle. “I should be asking you that, Ezra Bridger. What am I doing in your dream?”
“That’s a horrible answer.”
Thrawn, yet again, hummed.
An oxygen patch was visible now on the horizon, the cloud rolling over the land and turning the soil a deep red. “So tell me, Ezra Bridger. You forced my hand into your life when you shot us here, you forced me into this dream when you began to dream it. I know the latter to be the way of the force and the former to be the way of the rebellion.”
“What I do not understand however, is how you so carelessly managed to force us both into the past.”
Ezra was silent for a moment, watching the sun fall under the horizon. He inhaled, slow and deep.
“Us both?”