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The only way to survive was to swallow your instinct to help.
That was the first, and hardest, lesson Kanan had learned after being imprisoned. Trapped in an isolated labor camp on Erai, the ones who lasted the longest were the ones who kept their heads down and didn’t attract the attention of the guards.
And Kanan tried. He kriffing tried. But despite running from it for so long, he was a Jedi. Standing by wasn’t in his nature. That was the whole reason he was here in the first place.
But he tried. He forced himself to keep still when he had to watch other prisoners being beaten. Didn’t ask questions when people disappeared. Never stuck his neck out when anyone would know about it.
But just one month into his life (and death) sentence, he reached his breaking point.
It was a kid.
The boy who was being dragged out from behind the barracks couldn’t be more than fourteen. His thin, malnourished frame and the prison uniform hanging off of his body made him look even younger. He wasn’t fighting, a look of resignation on his small face as the stormtroopers threw him to the ground.
Kanan tried to make himself stay hidden, to remain in the shadows between the two buildings. But as he watched one of the stormtroopers kick the boy in the stomach, something inside him that had been bending for a month finally broke.
He ran out from his hiding place, only to stop dead in his tracks as the troopers raised their blasters.
“He didn’t do anything,” Kanan said, knowing very well that those could be his last words.
“He’s been stealing food,” the stormtrooper on Kanan’s right said. “This is your one chance to walk away.”
“I put him up to it.” The lie was out of Kanan’s mouth before he fully realized he’d come up with it. “I threatened him.”
“And now you’re just altruistically admitting to it?” the trooper asked sarcastically.
“He’s lying,” the boy croaked, still curled into a ball with his armed clutching around his stomach.
“Shut up, thief,” the other stormtrooper snapped. He slammed his heel into the middle of the boy’s back, eliciting another cry of pain from the child.
“What does it matter?” the first trooper said, impatience snapping through his voice. “Let’s take them both.”
He stormed over to Kanan, grabbing his arm and pressing his blaster into his back. The other grabbed the back of the boy’s uniform and hauled him to his feet. The kid stumbled, wincing as he put weight on his right leg. The troopers had probably beaten him when he was caught.
“Get moving.”
The stormtrooper holding Kanan, jabbed his blaster against Kanan’s spine. A surge of hopelessness washed over Kanan as he and the boy were forced away from the barracks. He should have known that intervening wouldn’t do any good. The kid was still going to face punishment for what he’d done, and now Kanan would suffer alongside him.
At the very least, he knew they probably weren’t going to die for it. If that was the case, the troopers would have shot them right there, leaving their bodies to be disposed of by the prisoners tasked with doing so.
An eerie quiet settled over the four of them as they were marched across the camp. Past the munitions factory where the prisoners in this section of the camp were forced to work. Past the shack that their daily rations were distributed from. Forcing them toward a sturdy building made of duracrete, one reinforced metal door the only way in or out.
Interrogation.
Kanan saw the boy’s shoulders stiffen as he realized where they were being taken. But still he didn’t fight. The only thing that would come of that was death.
One of the troopers produced a code cylinder, unlocking the door so Kanan and the boy could be dragged inside.
Kanan could sense the boy’s terror at the sight of the two torture racks, empty and waiting for someone to be strapped into them and be shot full of drugs and electricity.
“I forced him to do it,” Kanan said again, even knowing full well that they already didn’t believe him. But if there was even a chance he could take the blame for this, he had to try.
“Shut up,” the boy hissed at him.
“Both of you shut up,” the trooper holding onto the boy said. He shoved the boy forward, sending him falling onto his knees. Kanan was next, hitting the ground beside the kid, who flinched at the sound.
One of the stormtroopers stalked past them, opening the cabinet built into the wall and revealing the tools within it. Syringes, vials of drugs, shock prods, binders, and the object he reached for without hesitation.
The branding iron.
Kanan’s breath caught in his throat, and he could sense sheer terror pouring off of the boy in waves. They’d both seen people branded with the mark of a thief. Vicious wounds, infections rotting away flesh. And for those who survived it, scars that made them even more of a target than they already were.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kanan saw the boy straighten his shoulders, swallowing nervously.
“He didn’t do anything,” the boy said, his voice shaking. “I stole the food. He’s ly—”
His words were cut off by a cry of pain as the stormtrooper still standing behind them slammed the butt of his weapon into the back of the boy’s head.
“Hold him,” said the trooper holding the branding iron.
The soldier seized the boy’s arms, wrenching them behind his back. The boy cried out, instinctively struggling until the stormtrooper tightened his grip. His fear was like a physical force, pressing against Kanan’s mind until he was frozen, barely able to breathe or think, let alone do anything to stop this.
And anything he did would likely just end with both of them dead.
In here, they were expendable. Practically dead already. No one would think twice about killing them.
The other stormtrooper hit a switch on the side of the branding iron. It wasn’t long before it was glowing bright red with heat. The boy whimpered and strained against the arms holding him as the trooper approached, brandishing the device. The stormtrooper grabbed the boy’s chin, tilting his face back and forth, examining it through his expressionless helmet.
“Wonder where I should put this one,” he said. He held the branding iron directly in front of the boy’s right eye, the glowing metal threatening to blind him.
“Leave him alone!” Kanan growled. “What do you expect when you’re locking up kids in here?!”
The trooper holding onto the boy released him, kicking Kanan in the back hard enough to knock him to the floor. The one holding the branding iron let go of the kid too, rounding on Kanan and viciously kicking him in the stomach.
“I was just planning to make you watch this,” he snarled. “But since you’re so eager for punishment, you can do it.”
Before Kanan even registered exactly what the stormtrooper was saying, he was being pulled to his feet, the branding iron pressed roughly into his hand. He stared down at it, his hand paradoxically tightening around it.
The kid’s breath was coming in terrified, shaking gasps now. Fear was sparking and crackling in the air around him, a furious, terrified storm. But he was just as frozen as Kanan was, knowing there was no way to avoid this without getting killed.
“Get to it,” the first stormtrooper said. He grabbed hold of the boy’s hair and drew his blaster, holding the barrel against the side of the kid’s head. The boy went still, his eyes widening.
“No,” he mumbled, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. “No, no.”
Kanan felt sick. Every fiber of his being was screaming for him not to do this. But if he didn’t, the kid would die, and Kanan would be next. At least he could try to make this less humiliating and terrifying.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Kanan said, the words not nearly enough to lessen the impact of what he was about to do.
He took hold of the kid’s wrist and pushed back his sleeve. The boy tried to pull away but Kanan tightened his grip, hating himself with every motion.
“No!” the boy cried. “No!”
Fighting off every instinct that screamed for him to stop, Kanan pressed the burning metal to the boy’s forearm. The kid screamed, the horrifying sound echoing in the enclosed space. The sound shook Kanan to his core, making his heart ache. Steeling himself, he did something he hadn’t done in years – he reached out through the Force, brushing up against the boy’s mind, trying to do his best to soothe the kid.
At long last, the stormtrooper lowered his weapon from its place at the boy’s head. Kanan pulled the branding iron away from the kid’s skin, making him cry out again as it tugged harshly at the burned flesh.
When it was finally, mercifully over, the boy was hunched over, panting as he clutched at his arm. Kanan didn’t need to see it to know what was left behind—what he’d left behind—on the boy’s skin. The letter Thesh, marking him as a thief with a horrible scar that would last the rest of his short, miserable life.
One of the troopers pried the branding iron from Kanan’s grip before inserting his code cylinder beside the door.
“Get moving,” he snapped. “Five minutes until lockdown.”
The boy didn’t move. His presence in the Force seemed to have shrunk down, like he was lost inside his own head. Guilt still clawing at the inside of his chest, Kanan grabbed hold of the boy’s uninjured arm, pulling him to his feet. The kid didn’t resist. He barely even seemed aware of what was happening as Kanan forced him through the door.
But the instant they were outside, the kid wrenched himself out of Kanan’s grip.
“Get off me,” the kid growled, glaring up at Kanan with pure hatred in his eyes. Not that Kanan could blame him after what he’d just done.
“I’m sorry,” Kanan said. “I am, and you can hate me as much as you want, but we need to get back to the barracks now.”
If they were caught outside after curfew, they would both end up with blaster bolts in their heads. And then all of this would be for nothing. Kanan wasn’t about to let that happen. If he had to live with being forced to brand the boy with the mark of a thief, he was going to make damned sure that the kid stayed alive.
The boy trailed silently alongside Kanan, clutching his arm to his chest. Kanan could see the tears still streaming down his face even as he kept his head ducked in a fruitless attempt to hide them.
They reached the barracks with less than a minute to spare. Once they were through the doors, the locks slammed into place, sealing everyone inside until the morning.
“Where are your parents?” Kanan asked. It wasn’t unusual for entire families to be arrested together. He could only hope the kid had someone looking out for him.
“Not here,” the kid said bitterly.
“I’m sorry,” Kanan said, though the words seemed less than useless. “Guess you’re stuck with me, then.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“I know,” Kanan said. “But you don’t want that to get infected, either.”
“And what exactly do you think you can do to stop that?” the kid asked.
“Sit down.”
Kanan gestured toward one of the remaining empty bunks. They weren’t assigned, and the barracks were so overcrowded that plenty of people had to double up. The kid sank onto the bunk, his breath growing heavier as the pain worsened. Kanan sat beside him, tearing off a strip from the hem of his own shirt.
“Let me see your arm.”
The kid hesitated for only a second before stretching out his arm in front of him. His fear and fury was slowly evaporating, being overtaken by tired resignation. Kanan gently took hold of the boy’s wrist and carefully wrapped the scrap of cloth around his arm, covering the burn.
“What’s your name?” he asked as he tied the scrap in place.
“Ezra,” the kid said quietly, pulling his hand back to cradle it against his chest.
“Kanan.”
The kid looked away, his gaze locking onto the floor. Kanan could sense his anger simmering just beneath the surface.
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracked as he said it. The words were so kriffing useless in a place like this. But with no medicine and dirty water, there was nothing else he could do to make this better. “I didn’t want to do this.”
“I know,” Ezra muttered. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
It was the bitter acceptance in his voice that struck Kanan. He’d only been here a few weeks and already he was becoming used to the violence and pain and the feeling that his very soul was being ripped away and crushed before his eyes. Judging by his malnourished frame and the tired, deadened look in his eyes, Ezra had been here much longer. Long enough that in spite of his initial anger and resentment, he knew he had no choice but to simply accept whatever happened to him here, even if it was his own death.
“Try to sleep,” Kanan told him. “Hopefully I’ll be able to find something to clean the wound with.”
Not that it would do much good. The water here was contaminated anyway. He would have cleaned the wound already otherwise.
Ezra hesitated for a moment before lying down, curling up on his side with his burned arm clutched against his chest.
Kanan pretended not to see him still crying.
At first, Ezra seemed fine.
Kanan kept his distance, knowing that the boy had good reason not to want his help. It was incredible that the kid had managed to hold onto even a scrap of pride this long, and Kanan wasn’t going to begrudge him that. But he still watched, looking for any signs of illness.
The kid had no one. Someone had to do it.
After three days, he could see a sheen of sweat on the boy’s forehead, even from a distance. He staggered as he walked when they were being herded back to the barracks after their shift at the factory. Even as he tensed every muscle to try and prevent it, Kanan could see him shaking.
And then he collapsed.
They had almost reached the barracks when Ezra fell. Before he hit the ground, Kanan was at his side, grabbing his arms and pulling him back to his feet. Even with the barrier of the kid's sleeves separating their skin, Kanan could feel him burning up.
“I’m fine,” Ezra mumbled, weakly struggling against Kanan’s hold on him.
Kanan released him, only for the kid to stumble again. Kanan grabbed him again, leaning the boy against his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Kanan said quietly. “I’ve got you.”
This time, the kid didn’t protest. He let Kanan lead him the rest of the way back to the barracks. Kanan could feel his chest moving quickly with shallow, labored breaths.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Kanan said as they stumbled through the door to the barracks. “You’re gonna be fine.”
But he knew his promises were meaningless. And the kid knew it, too. In this place, there was nothing anyone could do to make sure things turned out okay.
He carefully set Ezra on the nearest empty bunk. The kid lay down immediately, curling up on his side with his eyes barely open.
“I need to see your arm,” Kanan said.
The kid didn’t resist as Kanan pushed back his sleeve. Not even a performative attempt. The bandage beneath his sleeve still looked somewhat clean. Kanan had seen the kid tear a strip off of his own shirt the day before and change out the old one. Looking back, Kanan knew that should have tipped him off that something was wrong.
Even after mentally preparing himself for what he was going to see, Kanan’s stomach lurched when he pulled away the makeshift bandage. The skin around the burn had gone dark, pus crusting on the edges of the wound.
“That bad?” Ezra mumbled.
“Yeah,” Kanan said. “It’s that bad.”
Ezra pulled his arm out of Kanan’s grip, tucking it closely against his chest. He shuddered, a wave of tired resignation emanating through the Force.
“Hey,” Kanan said. He reached out, gently brushing a few loose strands of dark hair off the boy’s sweat soaked forehead. It was instinctive. He barely realized that he was doing it until it was already done, and he wasn’t sure the kid even noticed it. “You can still fight this off.”
But his words did little to comfort either of them. If the infection was this bad already, there was little hope of it improving without treatment. And there was almost no hope of getting treatment here.
It was the almost that made Kanan feel even more hopeless. He knew contraband made its way into the camp. He’d seen pills and bacta and clean bandages changing hands more than once. But he hadn’t been here long enough to know who to talk to or bribe or shake down. And approaching the wrong person could just get both him and the kid into more trouble.
But Ezra had been here longer.
“Kid,” Kanan said gently, “how long have you been here?”
“A few years,” Ezra mumbled, still not opening his eyes. There was a bleary, dream-like quality to his voice that made Kanan feel guilty for even asking. Like he was taking advantage of the kid’s illness to pry into his past. “I was in a prison on Taral V before. They’d recruit kids to be cadets, but they sent me here once they realized I’d make a shit stormtrooper.”
He laughed weakly, halfheartedly, in a way that almost sounded delirious.
Kanan forced himself to set aside his fury and disgust (though not surprise – he’d lost his capacity for that years ago) at the knowledge that the Empire used imprisoned kids to pad out their army. The important thing now was finding a way to help Ezra.
“So you’d know who can –”
“I already tried,” the kid said mournfully, too tired and in too much pain to hide his feelings. “Someone in the supply chain got caught. There’s nothing they can do until they find a new contact. But by then…”
The kid trailed off, but Kanan knew what he was going to say. By the time they found a new contact, he could be dead.
“I’m so sorry, Ezra,” Kanan said.
“It’s fine,” the kid said, the tremor in his voice revealing how he really felt. “I didn’t expect to last here anyway.”
Kanan didn’t know what to say to that. There was nothing anyone could say that would make any of this okay. So he did the only thing he could. He rested his hand on the kid’s shoulder, trying to provide him even a hint of comfort. If he was going to die, it likely wouldn’t be tonight, but still Kanan felt as if he was sitting at the bedside of someone who would be gone in a few moments. Who was mostly gone already.
The kid shuddered beneath his touch but didn’t push him away. Tears trickled down his cheeks from beneath his barely open lids.
“I want my mom and dad,” he said, his voice so small it sounded like it was coming from a much younger kid. “I wanna go home.”
“I know,” Kanan said softly. He carefully pulled the threadbare blanket over the kid, tucking it gently around him. “I can be your dad for now.”
The kid didn’t respond out loud, but a heavy surge of sorrow pulsed through the Force.
It didn’t take long for the kid to fall into a fitful sleep. The others in the barracks, recognizing what was happening, kept a respectful distance with the exception of one person who draped a second blanket over Ezra’s shivering form.
Kanan didn’t sleep the whole night. He stayed seated at the boy’s side, watching the rise and fall of his chest. It was steady, which had to be a good sign, but every time he touched the boy’s forehead, his skin was warmer, more sweat clinging to it.
When the first hints of light could be seen in the sky through the gaps and cracks in the barracks wall, Kanan checked the wound again. Dark, angry streaks had spread out from the burn site, signaling that the infection had reached his bloodstream.
Kanan felt sick with the guilt. He’d done this to Ezra, hoping it would save the kid’s life and instead dooming him to an agonizing death by sepsis.
Since the day he’d been thrown into this place—since the day the Empire had formed, really—he’d been haunted by the knowledge that he couldn’t save them all. He’d just wanted to save this one.
But Ezra was only getting worse.
Kanan barely noticed it at first. The dull buzzing at the base of his skull. Something he’d tried to hold at bay for years but was still as familiar to him as breathing.
The Force. Pulsing through him. Reminding him.
But he couldn’t. It was dangerous. And he’d barely learned the basics. Something as dire as a septic burn wound was beyond his abilities.
You have to try.
He knew that. This was his responsibility. He was the one who’d branded the kid. Who’d interfered in the first place, pissing the stormtroopers off even more. If Kanan just hadn’t said anything, they might have just let Ezra off with a beating, not wanting to go to the trouble of dragging him off to be branded. It had happened before. But Kanan had made things worse, and he at least had to try to fix them.
Carefully taking the kid’s hand in his, Kanan laid his other hand over the wound. He closed his eyes, letting himself drift back through his memories, trying to remember his scattered lessons in Force Healing. His Master hadn’t been a Healer herself, but she’d known just enough to teach him.
He focused on the feeling of the wound beneath his fingers. The rough, scarred edges. The pulsing threads of infection. He let himself sink deeper into the currents of the Force, reaching for the source of the illness. Bacteria were living beings, too. Smaller and different, but still living. They were connected in the Force. He could find them. Stop the infection in its tracks.
It was dizzying, sensing things on such a small, granular level. He could feel every one of the boy’s blood cells like grains of sand slipping through his fingers.
This was it. The moment when he would find out if he could actually do this. Now, or never.
He reached deeper into the currents of the Force, and of the boy’s life force, pouring himself into them, pushing his own life force into the kid. He felt it as it started to work. Infection fading and dying. Skin knitting itself back together.
The Force surged around him, the currents dragging him down. He fought to claw his way back up, searching for the surface until he was finally able to break through.
His connection to Ezra snapped abruptly. He gasped as he was dropped back into himself, the rest of the physical world crashing into him all at once.
Ezra was still curled up on the bunk beside him, but his eyes were open now. He was staring right at Kanan with a curious, apprehensive look on his face. Like he knew.
And he did. Kanan could tell. The kid knew that he had done something.
Before he could say a word, a roaring filled his ears and his vision blurred. The last thing he saw was Ezra sitting up, fear flickering across his face as his mouth moved with words Kanan couldn’t hear.
And then everything went dark.
Kanan.
His eyes were twitching rapidly, but he just couldn’t open them yet.
Kanan!
The voice calling to him was urgent. Frantic. Afraid.
“Kanan, wake up!”
Kanan’s eyes snapped open. His body jolted, but didn’t move. Something pressed against his chest, holding him down. As he blinked away the bleariness that wanted to drag him back under, his surroundings began to take shape.
He was back in interrogation.
His heart hammered as he realized what was happening. He was strapped down to one of the interrogation tables. Turning his head to the side he could see that Ezra was restrained to the other. His sleeve was torn, and Kanan could see the brand beneath it, scarred over as if it had been there for weeks. Sheer terror was pouring off the boy in waves, rivaling what Kanan had sensed the first time they’d been in here.
“What happened?” he gasped.
“Someone saw,” Ezra said, his voice shaking. “The stormtroopers dragged us in here and left. It was hours ago. I – I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Listen to me,” Kanan said, fighting to keep calm in the face of the kid’s fear. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“What did you do?” Ezra asked. “I know you did something. I was so sick, and then I was fine and you passed out and – what did you do? Why is this happening?”
“I healed you,” Kanan said quickly, hoping that knowing at least some of what was going on would help the kid stay calm. The kid had seen exactly what he’d done, and now they were both locked up in interrogation for it. There was no reason not to admit it to him at least. “I used the Force.”
The kid went suddenly quiet and still, his fear briefly overshadowed by shock.
“You mean, like – like the Jedi did?”
Did. That word hit Kanan like a punch to the gut.
“Like the Jedi do,” he said. “They didn’t get all of us.”
“They’re gonna execute us, aren’t they?” Ezra asked, his voice breaking.
“Me,” Kanan said. “If they’re going to execute anyone, it’s going to be me. They probably just want you to confess to what you saw. You’re not…”
You’re not Force sensitive. That’s what he was going to say. But it wasn’t true. He’d known, on some level, as he healed the boy’s wound. But he hadn’t truly realized it until now.
Ezra was Force sensitive.
A potential Jedi, trapped in an Imperial prison camp, one wrong move away from being discovered and killed for it.
“You’re not Force sensitive,” Kanan forced himself to say. “You’ll be okay.”
But his words were hollow and they both knew it. Even if no one realized Ezra was Force sensitive, he wasn’t going to be okay. The Imperials would likely torture him into giving the details of what Kanan had done. And if he made it through that, he would still be trapped here, or shipped off someplace even worse.
The silence in the room grew suddenly tense. Kanan could feel a cold, oppressive presence wash over him. At first he thought it was just his own fear and Ezra’s. But it was different. It was endless and deep and hungry for something.
The dark side.
Not the constant, ambient Darkness that surrounded everyone and everything in this place. This was focused. Honed. Controlled.
The door opened suddenly and Kanan flinched. Beside him, he heard Ezra yelp in fear. His own terror grew as a figured stepped into the room, bringing those waves of Darkness with them. A tall Pau’an dressed in black armor, an object that was unmistakably a lightsaber hanging at his hip. An officer Kanan vaguely recognized as the administrator of the prison walked slightly behind him, as if afraid to get too close.
At first the Pau’an said nothing. His bright yellow eyes traveled from Kanan to Ezra and back again. A sickening satisfaction emanated through the Force as he took in the sight of them both. And in that one horrifying moment, Kanan could tell that he knew. He saw Ezra’s Force sensitivity as clear as day.
“You did the right thing contacting us, Lieutenant,” the Pau’an said. He lazily approached Kanan, observing him as if he were an interesting specimen on display in a museum. “Even if you did allow two Force sensitives to hide under your nose for this long.”
“Only one, Inquisitor,” the officer corrected him nervously. “He’s only been here four weeks. The boy is just a witness to –”
“No,” the Pau’an—the Inquisitor—said. “He is Force sensitive.”
Those yellow eyes seemed to gleam with anticipation as they stared into Kanan’s green. Never in his life had Kanan felt so much like prey.
“I will be taking both of them into custody immediately.”