Hera Syndulla

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The Great Tirahnn Fair was one of those see-before-you-die suggestions that travelers of all types shared around the galaxy. From tourists to smugglers, petty thieves to corporate nobility, anyone could be awed by the size and scope of it. Going back more than a millennium, the fair had been held every five Tirahnn years in the wide marshlands outside the capital city, land too soft and sinking for cheap development, but safe enough for ships to anchor for a few days. Those traveling merchants who landed to participate remodeled their ships as galleries for their wares, and opened their airlocks and boarding docks for the massive platforms that ran over the marshlands, connecting one ship to the next. The platforms spun together in a massive web along the ships, hovering droids at the ready in the days leading up to the fair to connect the new arrivals.

The second day of the Great Fair brought undeniably perfect weather - sunshine that glinted across the sea of interconnected ships, with the marshlands still cool enough to protect the fairgoers from too much afternoon heat. The platforms that stretched ship-to-ship buzzed with droids hawking snacks or drinks, buyers slipping from one sale to the next, and the occasional law enforcement speeder whining overhead. As was tradition, many of those selling decorated their ships for the occasion, with streamers and string lights, neon signs and garish paint jobs, sometimes even bottle caps or flowers. And inevitably holoprojections advertising their products. Enormous salvage haulers sell refurbished hyperdrive engines alongside star yachts advertising jesmin perfume and light freighters brimming with Cambrian wine and Trandoshan ale.

A few meters from Hera, another holo rotated through images of freshly painted astromech and GNK droids. What had actually been for sale down below hadn’t been nearly so impressive, but then, Hera hadn’t really been looking to buy. Settled on the platform along the open upper hatch of the B-7 light freighter, a Rodian boy of about fifteen stands over her as she kneeled in front of his R4 unit, affixing the new radar eye in place.

“Some people just secure it with a hydrospanner and leave it at that,” she says. As she speaks, she gently moves the probe of a sealer around the droid’s eye, careful as though she were spreading bacta over a wound. “But it’s not just about sticking it on. You really need to make sure nothing gets in there that could mess with her sensors - that’s a problem that can spread to all her systems.”

Hera at last finishes with the sealer, switching it off and recapping it as she gets her feet. She reaches out to the R4, tapping along her circular dome. “How does that feel?”

The R4 answers with a few satisfied beeps, and Hera holds out the sealer to the Rodian boy. “Secure and seal, right?”

“Right, Hera.” The boy takes the sealer from her and slips it into his bag. “Don’t know how long it’ll last, though.”

The R4 pipes up again, in a chiding tone, and Hera laughs. “She has a point - she’ll always know better than either of us.”

“Well, thanks for the help.” The boy hesitates, and then, “My family’s ship is over by those big Calamari freighters, MC-18 with seaweed all over it, if you come by I can give you a free bag of vine-caf.”

Hera smiles - that comes more quickly, as she thinks briefly on her answer. “Sure, I’ll stop by later.”

He doesn’t linger any longer than that. The boy gives her an excited nod, and calls to his droid in Rodian before they head toward the nearest walkway. “Bye Hera!”

“Bye Qebna, R4 -”

She’s just finished waving when another droid rolls up behind her, intoning a rather sulky set of beeps. Hera rolls her eyes. “Because your leg works fine, Chop.”

The resentful beeps continue as they move to rejoin the crowds along the walkways among the ships. So much for the droid knowing better

The initial rendezvous, after they escaped Garel, had been quiet, with no sign that the Empire had somehow followed them or known where to find them. As they don't know how they were found on Garel in the first place, this doesn't put anyone at ease. Hera can't risk reaching out to Kanan and Ezra to see if they made it to Lothal, not with the rest of their small fleet still in jeopardy. After hours of waiting, perpetually ready to jump to another rendezvous if TIEs and Star Destroyers suddenly descended on them again, Sato finally signaled for the Ghost to dock alongside the Liberator.

"My crew has been reviewing all our transmission logs and security protocols," he tells her, once they're walking along the corvette's halls. "We haven't found any evidence of an interception or breach."

"We've been doing the same," Hera says. "But with all due respect, I doubt either of those are how the Empire found us."

"No," Sato says. "More likely carelessness, bad luck, or –"

She knows at once what he's about to say, and it's the only reason she interrupts. "If the Empire had known our exact location, they would have sent strike teams, not a fleet."

His eyes flash up to her, perhaps also surprised at her interjection. But he lets it pass, and concedes, "Yes, it seems unlikely that we were betrayed. But I need to update Senator Organa, and I can't risk revealing his position if our communications have been compromised. We'll need to send a courier."

With another look to her. "The Ghost is the fastest ship we have."

Hera just nods, her mind already whirring ahead. "Yes, Commander Sato. I'll do another sweep for trackers and then head out."

"We'll transfer some of our fuel to you," Sato adds. "The Senator's location is very remote."

---

'Remote' is the word for it. The planet is uncharted, missing from the standard catalogue carried in nav computers and even Hera's more extensive collection. She plots a careful route to Sato's coordinates, deviating from the Treillus Trade Run well ahead of time and weaving through smaller lanes of largely barren space. The closest populated system she knew of were the orbiting stations of Sanrafsix, corporate-owned and Empire-friendly, which only makes this particular sector feel all the more lonesome.

From a distance, Crait looks white and frozen, but as the Ghost descends Hera sees red soil burst out from caverns and cliffs, spilled along as the white salt that coats the planet is brushed aside in the wind. Sato's own two-way beacon flashes along the console as Hera surveys the landscape, guiding her down to an enormous ridge that has been ripped open, the red chasm within glittering in the sunlight. A long trench cuts into the salt flats before it, dotted with lookout posts and mounted cannons, and a woman's voice greets her over her comm and guides her down into the open mouth of the chasm. Salt scatters, and inside a man waves her in among the ships already collected in the open mouth of the mine.

Organa is waiting when she lands. Hera hasn't seen him like this before – instead of his simple white diplomat's suit, he's dressed in deep brown, a short cloak along his shoulders that Hera knew concealed a blaster. A young human in white fatigues stands near him, her hair braided into twin buns and her right hand nervously thumbing her own pistol. He looks more like a soldier than a senator, until his eyes reaches hers, and his face breaks into a smile.

"But it sounds like your losses weren’t as severe as they could have been," he says after she explains what happened on Garel. He leads the way deeper into the mine, along a wide tunnel that has been lined with wire and quick-charge lanterns. The red soil crunches under her boots, and the whole place smells of salt and oil.

"In no small part thanks to you," he adds.

Hera doesn't answer this. Instead, her eyes flicker around each of the caverns they pass through, one lit by collection of portable Com-Scans that outnumbered the two beings in the room, a human and a Rodian dressed in the same white fatigues as Organa's guard. Another is stacked with crates printed with red warnings for explosive contents, and in a third two humans work under large lamps to mend old, mix-matched flight suits.

Organa's steps slow as they reach a larger cave, the crystalline red soil here still bursting from the ground as though enormous claws had ripped it into pieces. The space is too large for the small lanterns that had lined the halls, and here these rebels had laid out glowing mats in paths around the cave, to keep one another from wandering into dark spots where Hera suspected the soil had collapsed. Along the walls of the cave, she can make out an enormous crust-piercer and the spider-like legs of two ancient excavator droids.

"Looks like they barely scratched the surface," she murmurs. The air is cooler here, and the oil smell isn't as strong away from the ships. "Why did they stop?"

"Likely the same reason it's not very useful as a base for us," Organa says. His own voice echoes slightly in the cavern. "Too remote, too far off the hyperspace lanes. Hard to get to, or ship from."

Hera looks back to him, figuring he's about to lead her onward, to whatever she assumes he'd like her to see. But Organa folds his arms, looking out into the dark cave beyond them. A few pairs of pin-prick yellow eyes surface in the dark, something that would have startled Hera if she hadn't watched Zeb barking at couple of those shimmering crystal creatures to keep them from scampering up into the ship.

"Captain Syndulla," he says, turning back to her. "If you don't mind, there's something I'd like to ask you."

Or he'd been looking for some privacy. She glances down the empty passage they'd come through, trying to spot the shadow of his guard, but she doesn't see anything. "All right," she answers.

Organa's eyes meet hers again, and this time, he doesn't smile. Instead, he's focused, as though searching for something on her, and it's another moment before –"How old were you when you first –"

He seems to be waiting for her to offer some word, some way of finishing this question, but Hera can't guess where he's going with this, and so only watches him. Eventually, he says, "- when your father allowed you to join his cause."

This – is not what Hera expected. She presses her lips together, but otherwise tries keep her features in check. There's a lot she could say to that, about 'his cause,' about what she had been allowed - but she knows it's not the point. It's plain enough that Organa hadn't known how to ask this, nor is there any reason he should know. He knew Cham Syndulla, the militant radical. As she considers her answer, Hera looks back to the Senator, to his cloak, where she imagines he had hidden a blaster. She wonders whether he's ever fired it.

"My parents never hid the war from me," she says. Maybe there's a quiet correction, but Hera doesn't linger on it. "There was never a time when I wasn't a part of their cause."

Organa's eyes widen, but only very slightly. It seems he also doesn't want to give away too much. "And you don't resent them for that?" he asks. "You don't feel you were ever too young?"

Hera shakes her head. "The war was there, my being young didn't change that. I was always going to be part of it."

"That doesn't mean you had to be the one fighting it."

Something in his voice changes; there's a hardness that makes Hera feel as though she's being scolded. She meets his eyes, sees how the shadows fall across his face, the edges of gray in his dark hair, and for the first time considers that he must be old enough to be her father. A moment ago, she had wondered if Organa had ever fired a blaster. Now she realizes how very young she must look to him. Even if she is 'Phoenix Leader' – unlike Sato or Organa or Ahsoka, she isn't a veteran of the old Republic. Only a handful of years are between her and that young Twi'lek girl with her grumpy droid, alone in the galaxy.

And her eyes, set on his, don't flicker. She won’t have that.

"As far as my parents were concerned, being a Twi'lek in this galaxy meant always being at war." She lets her own voice harden, a tone she might use for an order, not an explanation. "And my life so far has only proved them right. So yes, I was always going to fight."

He's the one who flickers. He looks away from her, out into the dark cavern, and takes a deep breath that he releases in a sigh. She waits for him to speak again, but when he doesn't –

"I'm guessing there's a reason you're asking me this?"

He lifts a hand, pressing it to his brow at first, and down along his face. There's another deep breath. "I think what I'm looking for," he says, turning back to her, "is some advice."

And then it clicks. She thinks back to what she told Kanan, about Sabine and Ezra, another generation brought in so young, having only known the Empire. Leading them into lives – and possibly, deaths – shaped by war, even if that had already been the case long before she met them.

"My advice, Senator," Hera says, speaking slowly, "Is that you should listen to your daughter."

After a moment, Organa nods, and a hint of his smile has returned.

---

The Ghost stays on Crait for just under thirty hours, and Hera spends much of it working with Organa's communications officers to check their own data for any hint of an Imperial breach. There's also maintenance checks on the Ghost, confirming their fuel levels before their journey back to the fleet and cleaning out the salt that collects along the ship's turrets and outer plating, as well as distributing what they can spare from their own supplies, protein bars and power packs and even one crate of fresh fruit. A couple pilots venture up to Hera while she's wiping salt from the Ghost's nose turret, and she finds she can't deny them a look around her cockpit between questions about the new B-wing model and the destruction of the Sovereign. Everyone learns more about each other than maybe they should – a large number of Organa's recruits are from Alderaan's security forces, nearly all of the others came through resistance networks running out of Coruscant.

Nothing is found to suggest the communications on Crait have been compromised, but still, Hera waits until they've departed the base, and are deep into their first leg of their path back to the fleet, before she signals Sato. With that done, she checks her chronometer and the ship's computer to confirm the time on Lothal, before sending another signal, this one to Chopper.

The ship does land in one piece. As she'd suspected from the moment she saw it, the stolen ship is a rare Imperial shuttle made for stealth. She leans easily into these controls, quietly whipping through space, even after it became apparent that the patrolling TIEs had been ordered to find the ship's escaped prisoners. Hera had dodged among them, evading their scopes and radars, as she flew the shuttle far out enough to make the jump to hyperspace. In the end, it was only one unfortunate fighter that managed to catch sight of her.

The shuttle's weapons systems are nothing special, she learned. But they did the job.

The jump to Batuu was only about three hours, even with the slightly roundabout route Hera decided to take. The girls, fortunately, seem to be accustomed to space travel. Occasionally they whisper to each other, but otherwise, they tend to stay quiet unless Hera speaks to them. About an hour in, Hera recommends that they get some sleep, and the girls don't object.

It's midafternoon at Black Spire when they reach the planet. Hera is careful on her approach, avoiding likely lanes of traffic – she doesn't want to run into questions about the stolen shuttle she's flying. But then, most who visit Batuu aren't the type to ask questions. But she still chooses to land the shuttle in a clearing, surrounded by dense forest, about five kliks downriver of the outpost.

As the shuttle touches down, she turns to the girls. "Are you all right?"

It's late in the cycle before Hera's back on the Ghost. That hasn't been unusual lately, but today it's because she had spent many extra hours on Phoenix Home, with the pilots now under her command. It was such a fast and sudden change that she hadn't had time to think any more on it. And at first, she hadn't wanted to. The easiest and in this case maybe the best thing was to just dig in. She already knew the pilots of Phoenix Squadron as an ally, had already noted much about their skills and tendencies. Speaking to them as a squadron leader came easily. And neither the pilots nor Sato seemed surprised at this. This was what kept her attention, in those first few hours.

But now she's back on the Ghost, back with her other crew. Rather than heading up toward the cabins, however, Hera moves downward. Down through the ship, on and on, until she reaches the cargo bay. It's completely empty now, as every free meter of it had been used to hold the crates that were dropped down to the Ibaarians.

Hera moves to the edge of the landing that look down into the bay, and lowers herself to the floor, hanging her legs down over the side of the cargo space. She leans forward, lifting one hand to the railing, and resting her head against it.

She's awake. Her face is flat against some smooth surface, the smell of it quick to help her remember the mat. The sandcrawler, the Jawas. One arm is tucked beneath her, the other out, her fingers also pressing into the mat. She feels the fabric of her hood tucked against her forehead, her lekku, and there's something on top of her, lying horizontal across her, set just above her elbow. Hera can hear slow, steady breathing, can feel it along the back of her neck. It's all she can hear. The crawler has stopped.

Hera opens her eyes. There's bright white light, coming up from the grate beneath them. She shifts, turning over, and realizes what's lying across her is Kanan's arm. She must have moved closer to him in her sleep. Hera lifts herself up, and slowly tries to move his arm off from her and back to his side, quietly and gently enough to not wake him. Maybe that's something she should think about, be bothered by or – not. But for now it doesn't hold her interest. She rolls back to the edge of the mat, looking down into the room below, but though the lights are on, and the combustion chamber reignited, there's no one inside.

Now she hears more – voices. Scurrying footsteps outside. Have they arrived somewhere? Hera doesn't feel like they've slept that long. She pulls out her chrono – nearly four hours. It's the middle of the night. What's gotten the rest of them up?

When the girl returned, it was with a newly constructed lightsaber.It took the place of the shattered one she had carried before, that rumor had it had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker. Those pieces she had presented to Leia Organa – and what had been done with them, the General had kept to herself. Many had nudged Hera to share what she knew of it, as close as she was to Leia, but Hera could truthfully say she had no idea. Though of course, she also hadn't asked.

Rey's return had been greeted with great excitement from those on base – the curious troops had poured out into the landing fields, only giving way for her friends to greet her. She had been quiet at first, but after a few hours, with enough coaxing, she did share her new lightsaber - one thing from her secret travels to learn more about the old secrets of the Force, and the Jedi Order. That new saber turned out to be two bright blue blades that glided smoothly through the air as she swung it, as she had once her old staff, that was now perhaps just a relic of her old life as a scavenger.

What else she learned while she was gone, Rey kept to herself, or at least didn't share with many. Maybe with the General. Maybe with her close friends.

And when others asked Hera about this – that's when she had to lie. To an extent.

Her presence lifts the spirits of everyone on base. Though the Resistance has rebuilt, their numbers spreading across the Galaxy, the First Order has responded with the viciousness of a cornered sleeth, forcing the Resistance into battle by brutalizing civilians, repaying any strike against them by slaughtering whomever was unlucky enough to fall within their reach. What they needed wasn't just a fighting force, even with the progress they'd made to build one.

They had to face the heart of the First Order, the infamous Kylo Ren. Rey gave them hope, or so it was said.

Hope is for the dead. That's what her father had said. For the living, there's work.

Hera can see her in the far distance – Rey has retreated to a deep, rocky valley a few kliks away from the base. The wind is whipping harshly, the sky set with the rust red clouds that on this world preceded a lightning storm. Maybe she still has a few hours, maybe she doesn't mind. What Hera can really see, what she knows she can see, is the flash of her sabers as they spin, so fast, nothing but a tiny circle of spinning blue light.

And even so far, in her head, Hera can hear the slices of the blades through the air, the practiced rhythm of Rey's breath, the quick yet steady, soft steps, as though the ground were lifting up to meet her feet.

Most of the fleet had survived. There was that.

The Ghost had survived, and that hadn't been easy. Hera had been taking it for granted that she could outfly anyone. And even in the moment, she'd blocked out any doubt. If she'd actually let herself think too long about that escape right through a Star Destroyer's tractor beam, she might have lost her nerve.

Now she has plenty of time to lose her nerve. Plenty of time to repeat the whole ordeal, since they'd returned to and then been forced to escape Lothal again. She shouldn't have jumped them back to the fleet so quickly, should have anticipated that the Empire could slip a time-delayed tracker on them. They should have expected that Minister Tua's message was a trap – but the Minister had been sincere, and whatever secrets she knew about the Empire were gone with her now.

It's cold way to think. Hera knows that. But quickly, it becomes a measure of how many lives were spent for them to gain what now felt like very little. The shield generators. Those could help, one day, if they could make a base.

And that line of thought is too much for her tonight. She rises from the pilot's chair, trying to press any thoughts away, keep her mind clear, like she imagines Kanan does when he's meditating. She even lets her eyes drift nearly closed as she moves – she doesn't need to see, after all, to find the cockpit doors, to know where to step as she climbs down through her ship. By now, the Ghost is living up to its name. It's quiet, a gentle hum broken only by what Hera can barely hear as Chopper's wheels treading along somewhere below. The others were resting. They all needed rest.

She keeps moving down through the ship, toward the galley. Or maybe the cabins.