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They ran along the metal walkway overlooking the distillation units of the refinery, pushing past grubby, sweat covered workers, who startled out of their way.
"How do we get out of here?!" Ezra asked breathlessly, as their feet pounded on the creaky metal platform.
"There should be an exit somewhere on this level," Sabine told him, panting hard inside her helmet. "If we can find the control oversee room it should be right past that!"
From behind there came a furious female shout.
"Stop them! Troopers, over here!"
"Man, she's fast!" Ezra complained, glancing briefly back over his shoulder to glimpse the Imperial commander in charge, still doggedly pursuing them, ushering in a bevy of white-armored Stormtroopers behind her.
"Less talking, more shooting!" Sabine barked at him, drawing out her WESTARs and firing back as the Stormtroopers took aim at them. Workers yelped in alarm, flinging themselves away from the crossfire as the Rebels and the Stormtroopers exchanged a flurry of laser shots.
"Not at the units you idiots!" the Imperial commander yelled, face twisted furiously as she pushed down a couple of her trooper's barrels. She took a hard left across another walkway to try to outflank the fleeing Ezra and Sabine. "Workers, stop them!" she ordered. "They're Rebels! They're trying to sabotage the plant!"
Most of the mixed assortment of humans, Trandoshans, and Grans were too astonished to move, but a handful stirred at their superior's command, moving to intercept, moving to block their path.
Ezra muffled a groan, sending anxious glances behind as the pursuing Stormtroopers closed in. Ahead of him, he saw several large men fill the walkway in front of Sabine.
"No no, c'mon, move!" she begged as she was forced to slow down and come to a stop lest she run straight into them. She raised her WESTARs warningly. Ezra watched her deliberately switch settings to stun with a flip of her thumbs. "I don't wanna hurt you!"
Ezra sized up his chances of clearing the workers away with a Force Push as he rushed to try and reach her side.
He was less than a couple meters away from her when he was seized.
Slam!
A heavy weight hit his back and greasy arms like thick logs came around his torso, squeezing hard. The breath was knocked out of him for a second, his feet briefly coming off the ground entirely as the huge human plant worker pulled him back, reeking of oil and ash and chemicals.
"Sabine!" Ezra cried, struggling in the hold. He couldn't reach the weapons on his belt, the worker's grip was too tight, almost crushing. He couldn't even move his arms, his hands grasping uselessly at his thighs.
Sabine whirled around in dismay that he could see even through her dark visor. But in that moment of distraction the lady Imperial reached her, closing in like a revving hoverbike, fist outstretched.
CRACK!
She went stumbling as the Imperial commander socked her hard, smacking into the thin safety railing and bouncing off it. Dazed, she couldn't recover in time to stop the woman from grabbing her helmet and yanking her back, throwing her to the ground. She pulled so hard Sabine's helmet slipped off and skidded a couple feet on the scaffolding.
The Imperial commander was on Sabine in a second, sitting heavily on the girl's middle, smacking away the blasters she was struggling to bring to bear, barking an order to the nearest worker to, "Help me disarm her!"
A worker rushed to do so, a balding, fidgety-looking human who nevertheless had at least two sizes on Sabine and easily wrest the blasters from her thrashing hands, which allowed the Imperial commander to get in another painful-sounding punch to Sabine's face.
The back of her head bounced off the scaffolding from the force.
"Leave her alone!" Ezra shouted, squirming furiously. He caught eyes with the smaller weasly worker across the way, his glare so harsh the man flinched. "Why are you helping her?" he cried. "Do you know what the Empire's done to this place? This factory—"
"Shut him up!" the Imperial commander hissed, pulling a knife from her belt as her Stormtroopers closed in.
The worker pinning Ezra shifted one of his arms, sweaty hand clamping down over Ezra's mouth. His words were turned to incoherent muffles, blue eyes growing wide and fearful as the Imperial commander twisted fingers into Sabine's vibrant lilac hair and pulled her head up, knife held dangerously close to her face.
"Who sent you here?" the woman demanded. "Who is your Rebel commander?"
With frantic worry, Ezra watched Sabine struggle to focus her eyes, watched her wincing from the tug on her scalp.
She lolled her gaze towards the workers behind the Imperial commander, coughing once before croaking out, "He's... he's right," she told them, not addressing the angry officer in front of her. "You should be on our side... The Empire's been dumping the byproducts and the waste into the Guildi Reservoir... That's why everyone in the lower quarters has been getting so sick."
Murmurs went around the group, and Ezra felt their shock ripple through the Force.
"Don't talk to them!" the Imperial commander snapped, yanking on the handful of hair she held, knife blade poking Sabine's cheek. "They're not your concern! Tell me what I want to know, Mando, or I start slicing chunks off."
Ezra felt the man holding onto him shift uncomfortably.
"Now hold on, Miss Ucrine," his gruff baritone rumbled, surprisingly concerned. "She's just a kid."
"That's Commander to you, Worker 577!" she corrected, eyes flashing hotly.
She deliberately nicked the knife against Sabine's face, drawing a thin line of blood, and Ezra yelled against the palm covering his face.
"Sbmmnn!" he muffled, wriggling harder in the worker's grip.
"Keep that boy quiet!" the Imperial commander ordered, turning attentions back to the girl she had pinned on the floor. "This one need to talk," she growled.
Sabine punched up, slugged the woman in the shoulder.
"Ugh!" she groaned. Her face twisted in anger. "Little brat!"
She slammed Sabine back down again, cracking her head against the scaffolding.
Ezra yelped as he watched Sabine's eyes unfocus again, straining against the arms around him, wresting his head to try and shake the hand off his mouth. He had to get free somehow, had to pull the woman off Sabine. The knife was being brandished millimeters from Sabine's right eye, like the Imperial commander's next move was going to be to stab it out, and it made splinters of panic crack up Ezra's spine and into his head.
"Last chance, little Mando," the Imperial commander seethed, hissing the words through her teeth, flashing eyes furious and dangerous. "Who is your Rebel commander? Who sent you here?"
Still clearly dazed from the multiple knocks to her head, Sabine still managed a defiant glare.
"We were sent by Alirya Bpall, the water safety inspector you fired last month for noticing too much," she said.
The fidgety human man holding her WESTARs started.
"Ali?" he said, voice small and in disbelief.
Other worker's voices joined in, rustling with discontent and anger.
"You said she was stealing equipment!"
"I knew something was up with those lifts we were loading the barrels on!"
"You've been making us sick?!"
The Stormtroopers closed ranks around their commander, shuffling nervously. "Back up!" one ordered, pointing a blaster at the ranks.
"Is it true?!" came a loud voice from among the workers.
The Imperial commander was nonplussed, still casually holding her knife by Sabine's eye. "I will address all your questions momentarily. For the time being, stand down."
The fidgety man holding Sabine's blasters recoiled as if stung, his face starting to contort. "My youngest almost died last week! I begged you for time off to be with her! All this time you knew? You knew the reason she was probably sick?!"
Vexed, the Imperial commander shot a glare at him. "This is not the time for this nonsense, Worker 38—"
Incensed, the worker didn't give her a chance to finish, bowling her over, knocking her off Sabine.
The man holding Ezra dropped him in shock.
Ezra didn't waste his chance.
While everyone was still reacting to the assault on their superior officer, he reached to his belt for his lightsaber.
Green ignited in the red-tinted room with a snap! Ezra whirled the blade and sliced through the barrels of the nearest two Stormtrooper blasters, disarming them instantly; the next moment he shoved both them and a third trooper back with the Force.
They were knocked into the bodies of the workers, who didn't stop their fall.
A quick twist around and Ezra sent two more troopers flying. One of them wasn't lucky enough to stay on the scaffolding, and toppled with a shriek into the refinery depths below.
A few deflected shots with his lightsber on the last knot of troopers and it was over. The Stormtroopers had been dealt with, and the Imperial commander was now pinned down herself, gaping up frightened into the furious face of the irate wronged worker.
The rest of them were gazing softly in awe at the sight of him, whispered murmurs of "jedi" floating through the rabble.
Exhaling, Ezra leaned down.
"Sabine! Are you okay?" Ezra asked her worriedly.
She groaned as he grabbed her arm and helped her rise, rubbing the center of her head where the Imperial commander had yanked on her scalp. "I definitely have a concussion. Probably."
Ezra grabbed up the fallen blasters that Worker 38-Something had dropped, and her helmet, passing them back to Sabine as he urged her forward, aware that some of the Stormtroopers were trying to get to their feet now.
The workers parted for them this time, allowing them to slip through to the clear parts of the scaffolding.
"You guys should skip work tomorrow," he called back to advise the gathered crowd. "This place isn't exactly going to be left standing at about, oh... six hundred hours."
Rustles through the company, some men already starting to creep off.
"Th-This is treason!" the Imperial commander sputtered from her pinned down position. "You'll all be arrested for treason!"
Ignoring her, Ezra pushed Sabine ahead of him into the oversee room, sending a solemn look back at the workers. "Sorry you had to find out this way," he apologized genuinely to them.
He closed the door behind them and didn't hear the uproar that erupted afterwards, didn't see the workers taking shovels and wrenches and whatever else other tools they could find to the machinery they had previously diligently stewarded, didn't see them drag the remaining troopers and their commander outside, the woman broken-nosed and bloodied, to sit in humiliation and wait for dawn and the arrival of the local Imperial governor.
His only concern was Sabine. Making sure she didn't wobble or stumble. Watching her closely. Lending a hand when she reached for one.
She squinted in the bright industrial outside lights as they finally gained the exit to the factory. "Remind me, when was our extraction?" she asked.
Ezra checked the large chrono on the outside wall. "About fifteen minutes," he reminded her.
"Right." She reached up and nursed her head again, muttering something that sounded very much like a Mandalorian expletive. "She really got me."
Ezra nodded gravely. "We'd better have Hera check you out when we get back."
Sabine managed a smile for him. "Quick thinking back there."
He shrugged. "Those workers were just men trying to feed their families. They didn't know the Empire was poisoning them behind their backs. Now they do."
Sabine's smile faded a little as her head swayed. "Hey..." she said softly. "Do me a favor?"
She stepped closer, leaning slightly on him. The unexpected closeness made his eyes widen.
"Carry me to the extraction point?" she asked. "I don't... exactly trust my feet right now," she admitted, voice soft, wavering, oddly vulnerable.
His face warmed with heat, but he quickly and professionally did as he was asked, scooping her up by her torso and knees and leaning her head against his collar.
"I got you," he promised in a whisper. "Just don't fall asleep, okay?"
"Okay..." she agreed, staring down towards her lap.
True to her word, she stayed awake for him until they reached the rendezvous. He cradled her close, keeping her talking with quiet questions and murmurs.
She seemed a little better by the time the Ghost's lights passed them overhead, but Ezra didn't let her go until she could raise her arms herself and nudge him away.
Her grateful smile burned into his memory as they boarded the ramp.