Disney Books - Droids in Distress

Copyright 2014 Lucasfilm Ltd. & or TM. All rights reserved. Published by Disney Lucasfilm Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney Lucasfilm Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

ISBN 978-1-4847-0637-4

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Fourteen-year-old Ezra Bridgers life changed the morning an Imperial Star Destroyer rumbled over his communications tower hideout. The massive vessel didnt shoot at him, nor did its complement of TIE fighters spot him on the towers observation deck. Rather, it was Ezra who acted. He grabbed his backpack, got on his jump bike, and followed the craft to Capital City on Lothal. Wherever the Empire went, there was expensive tech Ezra could stealand more helmets to add to his collection.

In the marketplace, Ezra found Commandant Aresko, the head of the local Imperial Academy, and his second-in-command, Taskmaster Grint, picking on a Gotal fruit seller who didnt have a sales license. As white-armored stormtroopers began to drag the fruit seller away, Ezra walked past Aresko and unclipped the new-model comlink from the mans belt. Moving out of sight, Ezra put on his most adult voice and spoke into the comlink: All officers to the main square. This is a code-red emergency!

Ezra watched in glee as Aresko, Grint, and the stormtroopers released the fruit seller and rushed off to the square. The fruit seller thanked Ezra and gave him a few juicy jogans as a reward. Ezra then headed to the square himself, via the rooftops.

Perched on a roofs edge, he peered down into the square. Imperial Supply Master Lyste was supervising stormtroopers loading hover crates onto speeder bikes. Aresko and Grint arrived, huffing and puffing. They demanded to know why Lyste had called a code red. Lyste claimed he hadnt.

While the Imperials argued, Ezra noticed a human male with a goatee and a ponytail standing in the square. There was something strange about him, something that made Ezra tremble. The man tapped his thigh twice, signaling a muscular nonhuman and a female in multicolored Mandalorian armor who didnt look much older than Ezra.

The girl in armor walked past Lyste and the stormtroopers, flipping a round object at a speeder bike. The object magnetically clamped to the vehicles side. Moments after she left, the bike exploded.

Those troopers who werent blasted off their feet rushed about, searching for the culprit. But the girl was long gone.

Get those crates out of here! Keep them secure at all costs, Lyste yelled.

A stormtrooper leapt onto the lead bike and sped awayonly to skid to a halt to avoid colliding with a landspeeder. Its driver was the man with the goatee. To Ezras utter amazement, the man leapt out of the landspeeder, kicked the rider off the bike, then drew his blaster and fired at the oncoming stormtrooper squad. His burly nonhuman comrade thumped out from an alley to assist, hurling stormtroopers around as if they were rag dolls.

Below Ezra, the lead Imperial bike lay unattendedalong with the two crates attached to it. Whatever was inside them must be highly valuable to have caused the confrontation. If he sold the contents, he might never have to pick pockets again.

Taking a deep breath, he jumped off the roof and landed in the bikes seat. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting, he said to the man and his bruiser friend, then heeled the pedals and was off, zipping through the city.

All of a sudden, the girl in the Mandalorian armor dropped from the sky to land on Ezras rearmost crate. She detached it from his bike and fell away with it. If that big guy catches you, hell end you, she said, her voice filtered through her helmet.

Ezra couldnt retrieve the crate, because the man and the bruiser trailed him on stolen bikes. He veered down alleys, snaked through an Imperial blockade, and got onto the freeway. The would-be thieves remained on his tail, now pursued by stormtroopers on bikes. The troopers fired at all of themand Ezras bike was hit.

Ezra lost control and his bike tumbled over the partition into the other lane. The man followed him, swinging his bike in front of Ezras.

Ive got plans for that crate, so time to give it up. Todays not your day, the man said.

TIE fighters roared down from the sky. Days not over yet, Ezra said. TIE lasers struck the mans bike, and Ezra raced away, off the freeway into the grasslands.

The TIEs pursued, unleashing their cannons. Ezra zigzagged between the prairie mounds but could only evade the guns for so long. One finally scored a hit. Ezra pressed the cargo detachment button, then flew off the bike as it crashed.

A TIE swerved around to finish off Ezra. He stood there, waiting for the inevitable, when a diamond-shaped freighter burst out of the clouds and blasted the TIE into a fireball.

The man with the ponytail emerged from the freighters cargo hatch. Want a ride?

Ezra turned to the hover crate. Having almost been vaporized because of it, he couldnt leave it there. He switched the crates repulsors to max, then grabbed it and jumped.

The crate landed on the freighters ramp. Ezra clawed up behind it.

All of Ezras efforts to save the crate had been meaningless. The freighters crew decided to sell its contentsan assortment of blastersto a horned Devaronian named Cikatro Vizago. Being one against five, Ezra was powerless to stop them.

Nonetheless, that didnt mean he couldnt take something of equivalent value. While they did their business in a refugee camp, Ezra snuck into the freighter they called the Ghost. Using the astromech arm hed stashed in his backpack, he unlocked the door to a sleeping cabin.

Ezras instinct for finding the most valuable item in a pocket led him to a drawer underneath the bunk. He took out an object with many sides, then a cylinder that looked like a glow rod. When he activated it, a blade of crackling blue energy extended from the lens.

Hand me the lightsaber, said Kanan Jarrus, the man with the goatee. He stood in the doorway with Hera, the freighters Twilek pilot, and the crews crotchety astromech droid, Chopper. The droid mustve been on the ship and ratted Ezra out.

Ezra waved the blade in the air. Lightsaber? Isnt that the weapon of the Jedi?

Give it to me, Kanan said.

Ezra deactivated the blade and did as the man requested. But as he left the cabin, he clutched the other object hed taken from the drawer.

He went into the galley, where the girl who wore the funky Mandalorian armor drank a glass of blue milk. She was the only one of their crew whose name Ezra did not knowand the only one hed really wanted to know. Ezra couldnt stop looking at her. She colored her hair like she colored her armor, with stripes of different colors.