Fighter Flight

A simple supply run for hard-to-find meiloorun fruit takes a dangerous turn, as Zeb and Ezra draw the attention of Imperials...and steal a TIE fighter.

Aboard the Ghost, en route to Lothal, the young rebel Ezra Bridger practices his burgeoning Jedi skills while the astromech droid Chopper antagonizes him. Angered, Ezra chases Chopper through the ship. Passing by the crew quarters, Ezra notices the Mandalorian Sabine Wren in her cabin, painting. He pauses his chase and crassly offers to serve as "inspiration" for Sabine's artwork, then notices Chopper slip into his cabin across the hall and continues after the droid.

Inside the cabin, Ezra's bunkmate, the Lasat warrior Garazeb Orrelios, rests on his bed and threatens Ezra not to wake him. Chopper zaps Zeb with his electro-shock prod then flees, prompting a fight between Ezra and Zeb. Ezra quickly reminds Zeb, not for the first time, that he recently saved the Lasat's life. Chastened, Zeb flops back down onto his bunk and rolls over. Ezra jumps onto the bunk above which, having been secretly sabotaged by Chopper, immediately collapses onto Zeb. Zeb chases Ezra out of their cabin, past Sabine, and into the main cargo hold, attracting the attention of the Jedi Kanan Jarrus as well as the ship's captain Hera Syndulla, who ends the troublesome duo's quarrel with an admonishing glare.

The Ghost lands on Lothal. As punishment for their behavior, Hera sends Ezra and Zeb on a supply run to the nearby city of Kathol. In addition to supplies, Hera warns them not to return without at least one meiloorun fruit.

While strolling through the city market, Ezra comes upon Morad Sumar, a farmer and family friend Ezra knew as a child, tending a fruit stand. Ezra asks Morad if he has any meilooruns for sale, but Morad laughs, explaining that meilooruns don't grow on Lothal. Ezra turns to leave, but, seeing an Imperial officer and two stormtroopers approaching, he quickly ducks out of sight. The Imperial officer, a Supply Master named Yogar Lyste, confronts Morad and demands to know if the farmer has changed his mind yet about selling his farm to the Empire. Defiant, Morad says he has not and never will.

Zeb finds Ezra and tells him he's obtained everything on the shopping list except the meiloorun fruit. Zeb tries to get Ezra to carry some of the supplies, but Ezra, again, reminds Zeb about having saved his life. Provoked, Zeb backs Ezra into a crate, knocking off the lid, and revealing its contents to be meilooruns. A Rodian trader, however, named Tsoklo informs the two that the fruit has already been sold to the Empire. Ezra and Zeb follow the crate as a stormtrooper takes it and loads it onto an Imperial Troop Transport. Despite Zeb's objection, Ezra attempts to steal the crate from a distance by using the Force to levitate it off the transport. When this fails, however, Ezra instead sneaks forward to steal the fruit the old-fashioned way, but is quickly spotted by Lyste and his stormtroopers. Ezra and Zeb flee the scene, abandoning the supplies. Using his innate climbing abilities as a Lasat, Zeb tries to lose the Imperials by scaling the wall of a building, hauling Ezra behind him by the collar. He manages to fling Ezra to the roof, but blaster fire from the stormtroopers below causes Zeb to lose his grip and fall. Fortunately, he lands on top of the stormtroopers and knocks them out. He calls back up to Ezra to keep moving then runs off himself.

Eventually, Zeb enters a city plaza and finds himself trapped between two stormtroopers and a TIE fighter (piloted by Baron Valen Rudor, we later learn.) Ignoring their demands to surrender, Zeb instead jumps up onto the TIE fighter, opens the hatch and hijacks it, throwing Rudor out. Unskilled at flying TIEs, Zeb is still able to shoot at the stormtroopers, chasing them off. He then flies the ship, with obvious difficulty, over the city. Meanwhile, Ezra makes his way across the rooftops, leaping from building to building, pursued by stormtroopers and dodging their laser fire. Zeb catches up with Ezra in the stolen TIE fighter. He offers to let Ezra on board, but only if Ezra agrees that doing so will make them even. Ezra agrees, Zeb opens the hatch, and the boy jumps inside. As the two fight for control of the TIE fighter, they accidentally fire upon Tskolo's fruit stand, showering the ship in fruit pulp and obscuring the view out of the cockpit window.

Meanwhile, aboard the Ghost, Sabine denies Hera access to Ezra and Zeb's cabin, claiming that, whatever it is she's doing inside, was Ezra's idea. Hera shrugs and moves on, commenting to herself that at least it's not her cabin.

Zeb continues to fly the TIE fighter with difficulty, struggling to see where he's going. Guided by the Force, Ezra senses a large rock formation ahead and, grabbing the controls, steers the ship around it, narrowly avoiding impact. When asked how he knew to do that, Ezra admits to Zeb that he isn't sure. Zeb contacts Hera and Kanan and informs them of their situation. Upon learning about the stolen TIE fighter, Kanan sternly orders Zeb and Ezra to disable the ship's locator beacon and to immediately rendezvous with the Ghost at "Shadow Site 2".

Meanwhile, Supply Master Lyste and a squad of stormtroopers have arrived on the Sumar farmstead. Lyste informs Morad that the Empire is no longer interested in "purchasing" his farmland. Instead, he is there to seize it by force. He takes Morad, his wife Marida, and their Aqualish helper prisoner.

From the cockpit of the TIE fighter, Ezra spots a column of smoke on the horizon and, recognizing the location and fearing the worst, convinces Zeb to fly there to investigate. As suspected, the smoke is from the Sumar's farm which the Imperials have set on fire. Zeb points out the convoy of Imperial transports leaving the area and the two agree to go after them.

As Zeb closes in on the convoy, he contacts Lyste, pretending to be a "Commander Meiloorun" and warns the Supply Master of suspected rebel activity in the area and orders him to slow down. Lyste complies and Zeb moves in closer, allowing Ezra to get out and jump onto one of the transports. Lyste gets a look at the TIE fighter as it passes overhead and recognizes it as the one reported stolen. He orders his transport's gun turret to shoot it down. Ezra finds Morad, Marida, and the Aqualish confined on the side of the transport. He uses the Force to activate the otherwise out-of-reach controls and frees them, coercing them to jump from the transport into the surrounding grass. Activating the controls alerts the Imperials of Ezra's presence and Lyste sends two stormtroopers up top to take care of him. Using his energy slingshot, as well as fruit from the meiloorun container, Ezra holds them off. While taking cover behind the transport gun turret, Ezra pulls a wrench from his pack and shoves it into the barrel, causing it to explode. Zeb, in a display of fancy maneuvering, swoops in upside down, hanging out of the fighter's open hatch while piloting with his prehensile toes, and grabs Ezra off the top of the transport. Together they fly off.

As a token of friendship, Zeb offers Ezra a TIE pilot's helmet to add to his collection. Ezra accepts, despite already having one. The two discuss what to do with the fighter.

Having already arrived at the rendezvous, Hera and Kanan wait outside the Ghost for Zeb and Ezra. Hera spots them at last as the two approach on foot. They offer a single meiloorun to Hera, as promised, and claim to have crashed the TIE fighter to keep it out of the hands of the Empire which satisfies Kanan. On board the Ghost, Sabine shows Zeb and Ezra a mural she painted on their cabin wall depicting the earlier incident with Ezra's collapsing bunk. The image betrays Chopper as the culprit behind the incident and Zeb and Ezra chase the droid around the ship.

The episode was slated to be adapted into the young readers book TIE Fighter Trouble from Disney–Lucasfilm Press with a release date of March 31, 2015. The title was canceled as a U.S. release, but was nevertheless released in India by Scholastic India.

In the season finale "Fire Across the Galaxy," it is revealed that Ezra and Zeb's stolen TIE fighter had not been destroyed but had instead been hidden in the wilderness.

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