Grey. Light grey. Dark grey. Monotone. The same figures and soldiers everywhere they took her. The same, bland, boring tone of voice when they spoke to her. Barren cell, furnished with only a metal bench and security measures.
It was awful.
Hera wondered how Sabine was holding up. She knew that the teenager was probably itching to get out her spray paints. She didn't even know what had happened to her other crew members. One minute, Zeb, Sabine, and Rex were successfully creating a distraction and Kanan and Ahsoka were sprinting for Ezra, the next, the comlinks went dead and shots rang out in the hallway the Phantom was docked to. She couldn't fly out of the system; the Imperials had secured their ship with a tractor beam. Not that she'd leave her crew on an Imperial Super Star Destroyer anyways. Jamming her ship's doors, she had taken out the Imperials' security cameras all over the entire ship by slicing the database. Hera had then managed to wipe the attack shuttle's memory banks and destroy her useless com before the stormtroopers had overtaken Chopper and stunned her. When she woke up, she was being registered in the Executor's system and searched for weapons, with no signs or traces of her companions.
Now, only hours later, she was forced to face the likelihood that the whole mission had been a trap from the start.
Why would Darth Vader let Kanan and Ahsoka sense Ezra and track down his location? It made no sense. He didn't want Ezra to be rescued, so why would he allow them to come so close? The Imperial attack on the fleet had been a lure–and Ezra had been the bait. The Jedi would sense Ezra, become determined to rescue him, and then fall right into the Sith's trap, taking down the ever-threatening Lothal rebel cell–and two Jedi–in one fell swoop.
It was well planned out.
But not well enough.
Hera had learned from previous experience that stormtroopers never searched your boots for weapons. So before she had been stunned, she had made sure that she still had her Blurrg-1120 holdout blaster tucked inside her boot. Now, knowing that the security cameras would still be down from her earlier hacking, she removed her blaster and charged it. Time to call on a little trick I learned from Ezra.
"Hey, h...." She started coughing furiously, moving towards the wall beside the entrance to her cell. "Help.... Cho....Chokin...." Force, come on!
As if on cue, the two stormtroopers guarding her cell rushed through the door. Hera launched out, kicking out her booted foot and slamming it into one trooper's gut. He crumpled as the other one fumbled for his blaster. She smacked him over the head with her own weapon, and he fell to the ground. Both were only unconscious, not dead. She didn't want to draw attention to herself by firing until she absolutely had to. Besides, she didn't like to kill. She wasn't merciless, heartless, or soulless like the Imperials were. She typically only stunned stormtroopers anyway.
Borrowing one stormtrooper's Holoplayer from his utility belt, Hera ran out the door and jumped into one of the larger vents.
Let's hope I'm not too late for an ACTUAL, successful rescue mission.
*************************************
Zeb hated the Imperials.
But of all the Imperial bolt brains he had encountered, he hated Agent Kallus the most.
YOU ARE READING
Star Wars Rebels: When Hope Is Lost
Fanfiction[Highest ranking: #12 in starwarsrebels, #367 in sciencefiction and scifi, and #122 in starwars] . . . . . Book one in the "Star Wars Rebels: Chosen Hope" series. . . . . . It's been a year since the death of the Grand Inquisitor and the Ghost crew...
