Hera Syndulla

These days, the most reliable downtime they could get came during hyperspace jumps. Locked in for eight hours, Hera had drafted Kanan and Chopper into doing maintenance with her, and told the others to get some rest. Whether they were actually doing this, Hera wasn't sure - the distant sound of Mando sonic punk and occasional shouts from the cargo bay made her think otherwise. But then, as much as they might all need sleep, Hera knew that post-mission tension is always hard to shake off.

She and Chopper arrive in the galley first, while Kanan's still finishing a diagnostic on the dorsal gun. Hera asks Chopper to run a final systems check, ignoring his grumbling as she moves to make caf. Once he's plugged at a console near the doorway, Chopper blurts at her again.

"Yeah, I know," she says, while she powers up the brewer. "I'll get to it later."

The crew has made it back – and as it turned out, just barely. Learning of not just one, but two more Inquisitors was enough of a shock. But hearing the whole story as they debrief on the Command Deck only makes it all feel so much worse. How many of these red lightsaber wielding, Dark Force users could there be? How many more might be looking for them? Some quick thinking of Zeb and Chopper had managed to save everyone, but they couldn't count on that the next time. How much could they expect Kanan and Ezra to protect them from?

There were the medical supplies. Not everything the Phantom could have carried off that base, but then, Hera had long since learned that when it came to scavenger run, it was best to plan for coming back empty-handed. What they'd managed to recover would still last them a long while if rationed and conserved well enough. Things were still, for now, better than they had been. Considering those Inquisitors had been out there, had already known about Ezra and Kanan. And even Ahsoka.

Kanan stays silent during the meeting, and as soon as it's over, he pulls Ezra aside. Hera watches them leave together, but she doesn't follow them, instead staying behind to talk to Sato. They'd had a signal through an intermediary from a contact on Ibaar, an agent who'd barely managed to escape the planet as the Empire was building up a blockade. Things had been bad enough before, as the Empire had designated Ibaar an industrial zone and ripped up cities and towns to build factories and mines, with the populations pressed into labor. But apparently unhappy with the output, the local Moff, or maybe Tarkin, had responded by stopping food shipments.

It's the only news Hera imagined could make her feel worse. She and Sato began initial plans to break through the communications disruptions, assess which ships would be most likely to make it through a blockade. But she'd have to see it for herself to really know what might work, and though she didn't say it out loud, she saw no way they'd get food through to the Ibaarians without losing ships and crews in the process.

Which all means a few hours have passed by the time Hera's making it back down into the Ghost. The ship is mostly quiet. Hera can faintly hear music from Sabine's cabin, Zeb and Chopper's voices from up, maybe in the cockpit. Chopper's playing dejarik against himself. He gives Hera a one-armed wave as she passes, and Hera responds by dragging her knuckles gently along his top plating.

It's just a guess, she can't hear anything within. But she stops at Kanan's cabin, and knocks on the door.

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.

Hera never brings him food herself. She does usually help prepare it – she has a better sense of the Terran diet than most, and when it comes down to it, she doesn't fully trust the others not to poison a meal they know is going to their half-Terran 'guest.' But she always finds someone she does trust to take it into him. And then, at first, she'd waited, leaving him to eat alone before she entered his room.

She kept to the first. But the second, she gradually eased. Hera remembered how total her isolation had been, and what had eased in her when she'd grown used to sharing meals. That was something she could do, even if she wouldn't serve him.

So the time she waits becomes shorter and shorter. Until today, when it's only a few minutes after seeing Muroc exit the makeshift cabin that she approaches. She nods to the guard, and then though she doesn't have to, she knocks on the door. She doesn't wait for an answer before entering the room.

It usually works out that Hera handles the credits, and Kanan did the 'heavy lifting.' Though any time he calls it that, she reminds him that it's only so heavy when the crates have antigrav. But it does mean that Kanan's usually out longer. Hera won't part with the cargo until they've been paid, which means that she's on the upper deck of the hold, sitting over the ledge, double-checking their payment for any signs of counterfeits and swiping through her datapad as she adds the new income to their budget.

And Kanan is, meanwhile, shoving crates down the Ghost's ramp, with the help of their buyers, a crew of Rodian junk traders. Chopper should also be helping, but he'd whisked himself away somewhere above deck, and it looks like Kanan and the others are handling things well enough that she's not going to bother trying to find him.

After about ten minutes, the last of the crates have been hauled off, and Kanan is shaking hands with one of the traders. He then retreats up into the ship as the Rodians exit, and hits the button to bring up the ramp. Hera looks up from her datapad, at first watching the ramp, and then, as it closes, turning her eyes to Kanan.

Not an option, Kanan.

It had always been an option.

Maybe what should shock her is that it took this long. Leave Kanan to the Empire, or hesitate long enough to be shot out of the sky, be captured or killed next to him. The mission came first. Hijacking the comm tower would mean nothing if there was no one left to send a message. It had to mean something. She'd heard that in his voice, when he shouted her name. So she'd closed the Phantom's doors, and flown them away. Kept her eyes ahead as she felt her crew watch her uneasily, having seen her leave one of them behind.

On the Ghost, Ezra sends out their message. An echo of the broadcasts of his parents from years ago. Their signal cuts out moments after the message ends.

A few hours later, Hera takes the Phantom out again, in a low, wide circle around the tower – or as it turns out, what's left of it. She knows Kanan and his captors will be long gone, though she still flies cautiously, slipping from cloud cover to mountain shadows. But all that's left is rubble, still smoldering in a bright haze that rises from the Lothal plains. Apparently reversing Sabine and Chopper's work had been too much for the Imps, or maybe they were just too impatient for it. Hera supposes it shouldn't surprise her. The Empire never saw a problem it couldn't blast away.

When she returns to the Ghost, they're already planning. But before anything else, they need to know where he is. The Imperial Complex in the capital is the likely, but not the only possibility. Especially not for –

If they know Kanan's –

And by now, they must know.

Get into the Imperial data network, find out where Kanan is. This isn't over, Ezra had said.

This isn't over. But whatever she might tell herself, with her even tone and her steady flying, the seconds are ticking away in Hera's mind, measuring out transport, arrival, preparation, interrogation –

Timing out the likelihood they'll ever see him again.

Hera's hovering near the door to her cabin.

She would hover near the door to Kanan's cabin, but she knows if she does that, he'll sense her there. And she's not –

He needs to rest. They all need to rest. They were lucky to all be alive. It had been an unbelievably, impossibly long day, ending with a massive shift for all of them. Meeting with Phoenix Squadron, with Fulc-

All right, it had been a more massive shift for some than others. And Hera's not sure how Kanan will feel about her after whatever the Empire had done to him, after her decisions both to leave him and to risk their crew – their family's lives to come after him. And then Ahsoka. She'd kept so much from him, and so much out of his hands, for so long. And she doesn't doubt herself for it, hasn't wavered in her belief that it was necessary, that it had protected them, all of them, not just her crew but the others slowing coalescing across the galaxy. She also believed that Kanan had been right, that they had needed to do more than cause the occasional nuisance to the Empire, than even saving a few lives. There had to be hope.

But Ahsoka's words still ring in her mind.
Your mission was to be unseen.

That hope was fragile as a single flame. What it needed was to survive. Keeping quiet had kept them alive, for the moment. But now there was Phoenix Squadron. There was Ahsoka. The threads of the web were beginning to connect.

And maybe what Kanan needs is to be alone. To think about it, and how he feels about it. And how he feels about her.

Hera doesn't want to be alone. But that's selfish. And she's not sure how to ask how he feels without revealing her own need.

So she lowers herself to the floor of her cabin, sitting up against the door, lekku pressed against it, and stares up at the ceiling. Trying to calm her mind, and trying to think of a way to knock on Kanan's door without having to knock on his door.

Insubordination. It's not a word she ever liked much, but she knows it applies. Her crew went against her orders, sought out Kanan even after she'd told them to stop, stole her shuttle, and traded Kanan's most desperate secret for what might be a lead. And what could she do about it, really? Lecture, scold. Hardly the work of a commanding officer. But then, what were they, really, and what was she? A modified freighter and a handful of beings the Empire had chewed up and spat back out again. That's not a military, not even a militia. It's just an agreement

Now they disagreed. Hera didn't relish the power of her command, it's why she so often preferred a discussion, or a vote. But she did carry a responsibility, to her crew, and to her cause. And nearly every rational piece of her was screaming that they couldn't take this risk. She couldn't send her crew to die in vain, couldn't put Kanan's life above theirs. He didn't belong to them.

They were all part of something bigger.

And they had disobeyed her. None of us want to give up on Kanan. It made part of her furious. Hera hated that she was ordering Ezra to give up on his teacher, ordering all of them to leave behind their friend, their –

But they were also the reason for it. The idea of going on without Kanan terrified her. She hadn't realized how much of herself, of her well-being and persistence she had put into him, she might as well ask herself to rip off one of her lekku and leave it behind. But it couldn't be about that. She had walked on before, and she would do it again.

And in another time, she might have told them to do the same. That they didn't have time for their sorrows. But they're not her soldiers, nor just her crew. They're her family, and this sorrow might be enough to break them. And she can't let that happen, either.

There might be a lead.

"All right," she sighs. "What did you learn?"

---

Strangers had always liked to talk to her. Especially when she'd been on her own, sometimes it was work just to avoid them. They were curious about a Twi'lek girl, alone save for her grumpy droid. The younger ones wanted to impress her with what they'd seen across the galaxy. The older ones wanted someone to confide in. Maybe for this young girl to remember them. And then there were those who simply needed someone, anyone, to hear them. Those were usually the ones she'd sought out herself.

Their stories weighed her down. She'd had to train herself to manage her emotions, and her reactions. Surprise, shock, concern, fear – it's not that she didn't feel them anymore, but that she had to remember what they looked like. What others expected to see in her. If she wanted the information.

Which, mostly, she did. Even if she didn't know it for sure when their stories started.

The one she heard now had come to her when she was sixteen, and co-piloting a cargo transport to Malastare. Their navigator was an old Sullustan, who sat with her in the cockpit while the rest of the crew played sabacc in the galley. He'd barely said a word more than he'd ever needed to, at least when the rest of the crew was around. But even at that age, Hera hadn't been surprised when he lingered back with her. When he began to talk.

It started with a confession. That as a younger man, he'd run with a group of marauders that robbed and scavenged their way across the Outer Rim. Low-profile compared to some of the pirates that had haunted trade lanes in those days before the Clone Wars, but prolific enough to get by.

Hera had thought, at first, that he'd wanted to impress her. She'd never seen being a pirate as much to brag about, but before she could say as much, he said a name –

Q'anah. A legend throughout the Outer Rim, though Hera had never known her as anything more than an old ghost story. A mythical pirate queen, whose exploits smugglers and pilots and freedom fighters like to tell around cantinas and campfires. Hera hadn't really known that story's beginning. Or its ending.

That Q'anah had really lived, once, decades ago. That she had thrived until being ensnared by a then young lieutenant from Eriadu. And that the same young lieutenant had ensured that anyone within range could watch and listen as she shrieked and wailed through her long, agonizing death. It had been more than thirty years since then, and the Sullustan's voice still shook as he spoke. He hadn't been trying to impress her.

He had just needed to speak.

And even then, Hera had known that lieutenant's name before it was said aloud.

"Kanan is on Governor Tarkin's Star Destroyer, the Sovereign."

Wilhuff Tarkin. They'd brought the Grand Moff himself back to Lothal.

She had a handful of seconds, to be sixteen, to be back in that cockpit, alone with the old pirate. Before Sabine speaks again -

The Mustafar system.

Before they're looking to her –

It's where Jedi go to die. They never come out. It's where every trail ended.

In that moment, she doesn't want to be a ship's captain. She doesn't want her crew looking to her. Hera wants to lock herself in her quarters and just start screaming. She thinks of Fulcrum's warning. She thinks of her father lighting her mother's pyre, of holding the fire herself. Will she leave Kanan to Mustafar? Will she send her crew to be slaughtered by Tarkin, Ezra to be another Jedi who never came back?

It won't be her last. That's what her father had said when she'd lit her first pyre. And he had been right about that.

And for another handful of seconds, Hera lets herself see that fire, lets herself imagine the lava flows of Mustafar, the screams of that pirate queen and her crew as they drifted into some distant sun.

Then, Hera opens her eyes to the floor of her cockpit. She raises them, looking back to her crew.

"We know where he is. Now we need a plan."

Hera and Jacen had spent most of the afternoon in the lake outside, with Chopper on the shore, occasionally beeping grumpily when he'd decided they'd ventured too far out. But Jacen had never been in the water before, and they hadn't had time to find a spring or river before leaving Ryloth. The shore had made things easier, so that Jacen could move slowly into the water, rather than diving in as Hera had as a child. And that was probably for the best – Jacen could be extremely curious, but was also shy, and far more cautious than Hera had maybe ever been.

So after they've changed and dried off their lekku, they walk back into the Bar, following Chopper to a table. Hera had promised hot, bitter tea after their time in the water, and Chopper, eager to do something he can participate in again, retrieves two model X-wings from the Bar, and brings them over. For the moment, Hera falls silent, sipping at her tea, and watching as Chopper and Jacen swing the X-wings through the air, making wooshing and blaster noises.

She doesn't smile as she watches, but follows their movements with her eyes.