Chapter Text
Zeb had preciously few memories of his younger siblings.
At least not real ones, like the ones he had of his parents and grandmother, untarnished by loss and destruction.
It made sense, in a way, though of all his numerous regrets, this was one that weighed heavily on Zeb. They’d been so much younger than him, barely old enough to have a full conversation with when he’d joined the Honor-Guard. And after that, he’d been completely absorbed in his training, leaving much too little time to spend with his family at home.
Sometimes, when he was able to, he tried to remember them, grasping onto the little things he could recall. When the grief and pain didn’t overwhelm him, when he could think of them as they had been, and not as charred corpses, burning with the rest of his family.
His species.
His planet.
Everyone he’d known and loved.
They’d been… lively. Happy and energetic, always running about, racing each other trough the branches of the highest trees that they could find. They had been stubborn, as well. Opinionated.
From time to time, when things got a little too quiet, when the Ghost crew was laying low for a while and he was feeling melancholic, Zeb thought about what could have been had the Empire not destroyed his people. It left him wondering what kind of people they might have grown into.
The oldest of them would’ve been just a little older than Ezra now.
‘And probably just as much of a pain in the ass,’ he couldn’t help but think, with a bittersweet fondness, as he watched Ezra powerwalk through the narrow corridors of the Phoenix Nest.
For a short little human who was still recovering from hypothermia, he could be surprisingly fast, brushing past confused crew members with his shoulders squared and a moody frown plastered onto his face. They’d left behind the hoverchair during Ezra’s outburst, and Zeb was pretty sure that Hera would have some strong words for both of them if she ever found out, though if he had his way, she would never know.
Zeb was catching up slowly, trailing behind a little to give the kid a bit of space to cool down. As much as he appreciated facing any and all of his problems head-on, the last few years had taught him the value of patience when dealing with emotionally troubled teens. Despite his independent streak and hot-headedness, Ezra tended to bounce back fairly quickly, and Zeb was sure that he’d confide in him eventually.
Reflecting on it, perhaps it had been a mistake to let Ezra work himself up like that. But in the end Zeb had felt it necessary that the kid realize the futility of that conversation on his own.
He didn’t know what Ezra had ‘felt’ in Vanto, he wasn’t a Jedi with creepy mind-reading abilities after all, but he hadn’t been surprised that the Imperial had rejected the kids offer so bluntly. Sure, Vanto might not be a complete monster (Zeb was pretty sure that plenty of Imperials believed themselves to be good people), but he had seen no doubt or hesitancy in the man’s eyes, and he recognized the look of a man who was completely taken by a cause – whether that cause be the Empire, or Thrawn himself, Zeb couldn’t say.
No, he’d suspected that nothing that Ezra could have said would move the man to defect; and Ezra needed to come to that realization on his own.
Goodness, whatever it truly meant, couldn’t be imposed upon people.
No matter what Ezra might have wanted.
Whether or not Vanto could live with serving the Empire, serving Thrawn, was something that the man would have to reconcile within his own conscience.
Eventually. All of them would have to.
And sure, some might need guidance along the way. Something that would make them realize that they were supporting a system that had brough so much pain and suffering to the galaxy. To his people.
Perhaps Kallus had needed it, or perhaps he hadn’t. Maybe he would’ve joined the rebellion regardless, without ever speaking to Zeb at all.
Zeb wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that he’d had that much of an impact, no matter how much his chosen family liked to imply it.
In the end, the decision had been Kallus’s alone. Zeb hadn’t attempted to convert him, hadn’t tried to make Kallus realize that the people he was hurting were simply people, not criminals or traitors.
He hadn’t. There had been no ulterior motive. Zeb had simply… tried to survive. They both had. Together, at least in the end.
Ahead of him, Ezra was still stomping angrily, looking frankly ridiculous in his blanket, though he had started occasionally glancing back over his shoulder, as if to check that Zeb was still following.
Karabast, this kid would drag him into an early grave. If only Zeb wasn’t so damn fond of him (entirely against his will, of course).
“Ezra!” he called, having reached the end of his patience, catching up and grabbing the boy by the shoulder. By now they had arrived in one of the more deserted hallways. Zeb turned the boy around carefully, tugging on his ridiculous blanket.
The meiloorun blanket had been Zeb’s gift. He’d kind of gotten it for the kid as a joke - just a silly little thing he’d found at a local market that reminded him of their fruit hunt. Surprisingly, Ezra seemed quite taken with it.
Silly kid.
“What?! What do you want!” Ezra snapped, bis brows still furrowed in anger. “And don’t say ‘I told you so’!”
“Relax, kid. I wasn’t going to,” Zeb grumbled, gently guiding the boy out of the hallways and into one of the many vacant rooms lining the ship’s corridors. It was a small living space, probably the former quarters of another pompous and self-important imperial officer. He led Ezra to the small cot, sitting down beside him.
“You feelin’ okay?” he asked, gruffly.
“I’m feeling great! Why wouldn’t I be? He’s just a random Imperial, it’s no big deal. I just thought that he might try not being an asshole, but apparently, I was wrong.” Ezra crossed his hands over his chest, hunching over slightly and scuffing his feet against the floor.
It was very clearly not fine. Zeb suppressed a huff of amusement and resisted the urge to ruffle the annoying little scoundrel’s hair. Ezra could be pretty mature for his age, but he was still a prickly teen beneath all of that. That was good, Zeb thought. They grew up way too fast anyway, dragged to the frontline of a war.
“Yeah, sure, I get that,” he responded, “But some people just can’t be helped. ‘Sides, he seemed pretty taken with Thrawn.”
Not that Zeb could understand that, but he guessed that there was no accounting for taste. Sometimes all it took was a single glance from another person, say on a frozen moon, and suddenly you lie awake every night, imagining how their much smaller hand would feel in yours, worrying about their safety behind enemy lines, imagining holding their tiny human form tightly against your chest.
That’s just how these things went.
Or something like that, anyway. Not that he had any experience with that sort of thing. He cleared his throat, his mouth feeling a little dry.
“I just don’t get it! Why would he choose the Empire over the Rebellion?! I know he’s not evil, I can sense it!” Ezra’s eyes were big and blue, looking at him questioningly. For whatever reason, he smelled sad. Zeb could feel a small grumbling noise, building up deep in the back of his throat.
All this drama was surely turning his fur grey.
“I’m sure you’re right, kid, but it’s not always that simple.” Maybe he should get Kanan to have this discussion instead; he really wasn’t sure that he was the right person for this, but at this point he had to see this through.
Uncle Zeb, paragon of wisdom. Who had declared him to be the expert on converting Imperials?
“Listen kid, sometimes… people are just set in their way. It’s really hard to admit that you’re wrong, let alone on the wrong side of a war,” he started awkwardly.
“That doesn’t mean that what you feel isn’t true, but if he’s really not a bad guy, then he will either come around in due time, or he will have to live with the consequences of his actions.” He shrugged. “But that’s not your problem, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I thought he would listen to me. Like Kallus listened to you. I thought I could help him.” Ezra expressed with frustration.
Zeb cleared his throat awkwardly. Well, maybe Ezra hadn’t started that conversation in the best way possible. Besides, the thing between him and Kallus was… a little different.
A lot more complicated. Something for him to freak out over on his own.
“It’s good of you to try, but Vanto isn’t Kallus, and as far as I can see, they’re nothing alike. We don’t know much about him, what he’s done, what he wants. You gave him a chance, but if he doesn’t want to take that, then that’s all you can do. No use crying about it.”
“I’m not crying about it!” Ezra replied, agitated. “I’m just… angry. But I guess I was wrong about him.” He was tugging on the blanket, making a face that always looked a little ridiculous to Zeb.
He sighed.
“Maybe we can get what we need from his pad. If not, I’m sure Sato will know what to do with him, especially now that we know that he’s important to Thrawn. That’s really all we can do at the moment.” He gave the boy’s shoulder a hopefully comforting pat. “Besides, don’t you want to see Sabine off? She should be in the hangar right about now, getting ready to leave.”
Ezra grumbled, standing up. “I guess,” he mumbled, “I get why she has to leave, but I wish she’d return to Atollon with us. It sucks that she has to leave again.”
Zeb agreed, trailing next to Ezra and leading him out of the room. He wasn’t a big fan of separating their little family either, but if it was important to Sabine, then he had to accept that. Still, it felt… wrong. They belonged together, all of them.
They walked in silence for a moment, and Zeb could see that Ezra was still deep in thought. Zeb grumbled, dissatisfied.
“So, have you contacted that sleezy pirate yet?” he asked, more to lift Ezras spirits than anything else. The boy still seemed weirdly attached to the Weequay, despite the many times the pirate had fed them to the proverbial Rancor. Truth be told, Zeb would be happy never interacting with the guy again, but annoyingly Ezra was right; he probably did speak Si Bisty.
The bastard.
Immediately Ezra brightened, his disappointment seemingly overshadowed by excitement for the moment.
“Not yet, I’ll do it as soon as Sabine has left. She still needs to encrypt a few of the files, but she’s going to send it all to us as soon as she’s done, and then I’ll ask Hondo to take a look at it. I’m sure he speaks Si Bisty, right? He has to! He seems like, super good with languages.”
Zeb made a noncommittal noise, content to let the kid chatter on their way to the hangar bay. Once, the constant stream of words would have annoyed him (and it still sometimes did), but he’d recently come to realize that he much preferred it to the silence.
The single worse thing than being confined to the medbay, in Eli’s opinion, was actually being restrained and bound to a medical bed, while being prodded and poked by a cranky droid and forced to swallow the vilest drink on this side of the Galaxy. And he was only exaggerating a little.
One should never underestimate the ability to freely pace around a room or simply cross their arms, and once he returned to the Chimaera (and he would, no matter what his brain might think, the traitor), he would do so at length.
At least that’d give Thrawn something to contemplate.
Being a captive, once one got past all of the exciting parts, was decidedly boring.
It had been approximately way-too-many-hours, since the Jedi had stormed out of the medbay, leaving Eli alone (not counting RX-7) to stew in his thoughts.
They’d kriffing hacked his datapad. Something that Thrawn had assured him was all but impossible, which was the only reason why he hadn’t wiped it regularly, like he did his official pad.
He wasn’t an idiot, of course – he’d never store confidential work files on his personal pad. That was just an invitation for trouble, and he didn’t appreciate being one of the kriffing morons being chastised (or worse) by an ISB agent for disregarding safety protocols. He generally valued breathing, and not being hanged.
There were things – files and comms - that he’d rather not have anyone looking through though. He very much resented the thought of his enemies, rebels, kriffing child soldiers with weird personal boundaries, sifting through his personal files and communications.
He felt heat rise to his cheeks and let out a hearty Lysatran curse under his breath.
“My photoreceptors register an alleviated heartbeat and a slight increase in body temperature. Are you in need of further medical treatment?” RX-7 asked, its mechanical voice toneless and analytical. “If you are experiencing emotional distress, please desist at once. My programming is not optimized for treating the human psyche.”
Eli gritted his teeth. “No, no further medical aid necessary.”
“Understood. Please finish the Nysillin tea provided to you.” With this, RX-7 retreated to a corner of the medbay, occupying itself with the readouts of one of the medical consoles.
With a frown, Eli quickly swallowed the last few gulps of the disgusting liquid (the droid had given him a cup of the tea every few hours to ‘prevent infection and provide necessary hydration’), all the while contemplating his situation.
So far, he had done nothing to compromise the Lothal Campaign or, thankfully, Thrawns TIE-Defender project. Well, aside from getting captured in the first place. But he trusted Thrawn to keep a cool head—
‘We were almost shot to bits by the entirety of the Seventh Fleet!’
Well, he amended, he mostly trusted Thrawn to keep a cool head and focus on their larger objectives.
He was worried about his pad, but the amount of sensitive information contained on it were almost negligible in the grand scheme of things. All the important files were stored on a small external data chip, and while he usually kept it on his person, he was confident that it wouldn’t be discovered. And even if it did – any attempts to gain access to the data contained on it would result in self-destruction. If necessary, he would chew that thing apart with his teeth to protect it. Couldn’t be much worse than the slob that the Empire sold as rations.
And, of course, his pad contained no data about Thrawn’s Defender Project or ‘Project Stardust’, so unless the Jedi decided to break open his mind again, he would not have to worry about that. He would die, if necessary, to keep that data safe.
Still, Eli’s weakness had compromised their relationship, revealing it to the rebels and further allowing him to be used to pressure Thrawn.
Not ideal.
What he resented most about his situation though, was the uncertainty. He didn’t know what ship he was on (though it had to be one of the bigger ships in the rebel fleet), he didn’t know where they were headed (presumably the rebel base), he didn’t know what had happened to his crew after he’d left them in the Ghost’s hangar to distract the rebels (hopefully they were alive and well), and he didn’t know what was to happen to him (this time, he really had no idea).
Questioning the droid had brought him no answers, and while he was glad that he wasn’t currently being shocked with energy prods, kept in delirium by mind-altering truth drugs or strapped to a nerve disruptor or a mind flayer, he almost wished they would do… something.
Instead, he was sitting in a medical bed for hours on end. Again. Bored out of his mind and being accosted by teenaged Jedi, child soldiers.
And what a weird conversation that had been.
Seriously, the nerve. Why in the stars would he join the rebellion? And to keep himself save from Thrawn, of all things… what a weird kid.
The slack on his bindings didn’t fully allow him to cross his arms, and he frowned.
Suddenly, there was a jolt reverberating through the ship, and Eli jerked against his cuffs, hissing slightly as they cut into his wrists.
It had happened before, shortly after Bridger had left. The ship must have left hyperspace, and Eli felt his heartrate quicken. Had they finally arrived at their destination, or was this just another quick pitstop?
RX-7 had administered the last of his treatment earlier, and Eli definitely felt improved. He still had a slight headache, and his breaths still felt sharp and tender, but most of his pain had vanished, leaving him only with mild exhaustion, a scratchy throat, and a few aches and stings. After some dinner that surprisingly didn’t consist of a ration bar and tasteless slob like he was used to, he’d even been allowed to change into his uniform again, which left him feeling much more comfortable.
Now, mostly pain-free and dressed, Eli was much more aware of all the things that could await him.
After what must have been another twenty minutes or so, the doors of the medbay finally swished open, revealing two men dressed in makeshift military attire, scowling at him. They were big and imposing, their faces hardened and full of resentment. Eli doubted that they were here to bring him dessert.
With clanking steps, RX-7 approached them. “Greetings, I am RX-7, the medical droid responsible for the prisoner’s treatment. Please identify your intentions.”
One of the men nodded towards the droid, pulling out a card for him to scan. “The Commander said to bring the Imperial in for questioning. He good to be moved?”
RX-7 made a disapproving noise. “His treatment is concluded, though I advise further bedrest to minimise the risk of infection or relapse.”
“Irrelevant,” the other man said, walking past the droid and closer to Eli. He had a slight accent, though it was hard to discern. The man was maybe a few years older than Eli, and as he drew nearer, he could see a jagged web of scars on the side of his face. They looked like chemical burns. He scowled at Eli, and somehow, he didn’t think that these men were likely to show him any compassion.
“We have our orders, step aside,” the other man agreed, stepping past the droid while the scarred man leaned over Eli imposingly.
“Here is how this will go. You’ll behave yourself. Try anythin’ and I’ll make you hurt, understood?” the man said, one of his hands resting near his thigh where Eli could see a worn military grade blaster.
Eli swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Subtlety isn’t your strength, huh?” he replied stupidly.
Without a word, the man undid the shackles that restrained Eli to the bad, roughly pulling him up by the shoulder and forcing him to stand. He grabbed Eli’s arms and wrenching them painfully behind his back, causing the freshly healed skin on his arm to pull, and Eli winced as fresh pain filled his senses. The man leaned forward, placing his mouth closer to Eli’s ear.
“You’ll want to be careful not to make me too angry,” he muttered sharply.
The other Rebel, a younger man with a shaved head, glared at him, one hand on his blaster.
“We know you escaped your bindings on the Ghost and called for reinforcements,” he said. “If you make a single wrong move here, you’ll be unconscious before you know it, get that? And don’t try to run your mouth, Imp, if you know what’s good for you.”
This time, aware of the man at his back, Eli wisely didn’t reply. The scarred man pushed him forwards, one hand on his shoulder, while the other man followed closely behind, no doubt eager to shoot him in the back at the first opportunity.
They left the medbay and led him through narrow corridors, keeping a firm grip on him at all times. They walked at a brisk pace, causing his bad leg to twinge with every step. Eli tried his best to take in as many details of the ship as possible – the way the lights flickered in certain corridors, the number of crew members he encountered, the layout and the state of chaos and disrepair (they seemed to be sorely lacking in the way of engineers and resources) – but the sudden movements made his head swim again, and he had to expand all his energy to keep up.
He was certainly in no state to attempt another escape at the moment; his best bet would be to try and prepare himself for another bout of interrogation, and possibly, torture.
As they ascended to the higher decks of the ship, the corridors grew wider, more populated, and better lit. Rebels of various ages and races passed by, staring at Eli with contempt and suspicion. Their clothing was worn down and mismatched, though certainly more colorful than would ever be allowed on an Imperial ship.
The number of people was greater than he had expected, and the state of their weapons indicated that they were better organized than most of the Imperial High Command had anticipated. Thrawn had suspected privately that there was likely more than one senator supporting the growing Rebel movement, and it seemed to Eli that he was right.
They seemed to be heading towards the direction of the bridge, but Eli’s hope that he would be able to learn something about their location was quickly dashed. With secure steps, the soldiers led him into a hallway to the side of where he suspected the bridge to be and came to a halt in front of a sturdy durasteel door. It was guarded by a woman wearing a muted brown uniform and a loose-fitting jacket.
“This the prisoner?” she asked, her hand hovering over the blaster strapped to her waist. Scar face nodded, tightening the grip on Eli’s shoulder.
“Well, ‘bout time, the Commander is waitin’ for him inside. You can enter.” She waved them through, punching a button on the doors access panel. “Oh, by the way, Verin, we still on for a round of Sabacc later?”
Scar face made a noncommittal noise, and Eli, internally affronted by the lack of professional decorum displayed by these rebels, was roughly pushed through the door.
The room inside was a stark contrast to the chaotic atmosphere of the ship’s corridors. It appeared to be an office, meticulously organized and functional. The walls were adorned with holographic displays, although currently only showing the rebel insignia.
In the center of the room stood a large durasteel desk, commanding the space. Its surface was clean and clear of clutter and behind it sat a figure that Eli immediately recognized as Commander Jun Sato. The Commander looked at him calmly, his gaze filled with confidence and determination.
Well, Eli thought, on the bright side, there was not a single interrogation droid in sight.