Taking In An Orphan

Chapter 21

The crew decided to fuel up and get some supplies after dropping the Wookies off. It was a horribly hot day on the planet they stopped at and the crowds were horrible. The crew decided to split up to get the shopping done faster. 

When they finished their list, Hera and Sabine made their way out of the crowds and back toward the ships. After twenty minutes back at the ship, Hera started to worry. It was getting hotter and hotter here and she didn’t want any of the boys to get sun or heat sickness.  

“Spectre 2 to 1. Come in.” 

“Spectre 1 here, what’s up?” 

“What’s your ETA?” 

“Probably another 15 minutes. We’re having trouble finding the meloruns you asked for.” 

“Forget those. Why don’t you hurry back, I don’t want Spectre 6 out in this heat anymore.” 

There was silence on the other end. 

“Then take him into the ship…” Kanan answered, unsure why Hera was keeping Ezra outside when it was this hot. 

“I will when you bring him back.” There was another long pause. Hera started to worry. “Kanan?” 

“We don’t have Ezra. I thought he went with you. Zeb says he saw him go with you and Sabine.” Kanan started to panic. Zeb, who was with him, started to look around for the young boy, but it was impossible in this crowd. 

“No, I thought he was going with you!” Hera started to panic. She looked at Sabine, who was listening in on the conversation and they jumped up and made their way back into the crowds of the market, worried for their youngest Spectre. 

“We are coming back out. Where’s the last place you saw him?” Hera asked. 

“When we split up. Did you tell him to come with us?”

“I didn’t tell him anything, I thought you already did,” Hera replied. Sabine interrupted. 

“It doesn’t matter who told him what, it only matters that he’s gone. Where did we split up?” 

“Back at the ship parts,” Hera said. 

“Then let’s follow our path back to there and meet in the middle. If he’s lost, he can’t have gotten too far. Ask around and see if anyone has seen him.” When Zeb and Kanan agreed, the crew set off to retrace their steps. 

Ezra looked up and realized he didn’t know where any of the crew was. He had been following the crew, very bored and sweaty from shopping. He hadn’t been paying attention until some people pushed past each other, jostling him to a side street. At first, Ezra called out for Kanan or Hera, but he couldn’t find them in the crowd. They wouldn’t just leave him, right? They would wait to find him before moving onto the next area. But the crowd around the street cleared for a second and Ezra realized that his crew was nowhere in sight. 

Ezra told himself he had been alone before and would be fine, but he was too scared to do anything right now. Dozens of tall people in a mix of species pushed themselves toward their next location. Ezra didn’t want to fight through the crowd, so he sat down where he was and tried not to cry. Why did the crew leave him? 

He listened to the strange conversations going on between people as he sat with his head in his hands, hoping one of his crew members would come and find him. 

“I won’t give you anymore!” Ezra looked up at a familiar voice. It hadn’t been one of the crew’s voices, but Ezra had definitely heard the voice before. 

“Well how about I pay half now and pay you back later?” Ezra jumped up and saw a man bartering with a shop owner. Ezra had seen and heard him before, but not in person, just over holograms. Ezra considered if it was safe to go up to the man. But as Ezra stared around for his crew and the heat on the planet increased, Ezra knew this was his only hope.