for_everyone | Entries tagged with tl: prime canon

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."

Hera couldn't be blamed for checking her chronometer again. Or at least, that's what she was telling herself. There was down time, but it was precious, and somehow the lack of any contact on her comm was what made her even more inclined to keep being sure they were still well within that down period. The Ghost was locked down in the most recent bit of Garel spaceport they'd managed to claim, and Chopper was on guard duty while most of the organic members of the crew were resting after an extremely eventful day. Hera had been surprised when, after they'd finished their debrief with Sato, Kanan had passed his own cabin to follow her.

She left the doors locked, but slid down the volume of the music she'd put on. There wasn't much privacy on a fully-manned freighter, but if the other crew had noticed anything, or cared, they hadn't mentioned it, and Hera would rather let them raise it if they wanted to. It probably wasn't the most responsible way to handle it, but – there was so much else to think about. But it was so much easier to let one thing be uncomplicated, even if she knew it wasn't.

Her boots are by the door, her gloves and goggles on the shelf in the aft wall of the cabin. Her chronometer leaned against her gloves, and she set the music player down next to them, leaving these where they were for the moment and moving back toward the cot.

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.

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.

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.

Phoenix Home was as Pelta-class frigate. Old Republic medical frigates – Hera knew them from the war, could still recall when they'd appeared in the sky just at the moment she'd nearly lost hope. The docking ports and cargo bays that had once carried crates of supplies or hoverstretchers for injured Clone troopers had been reconstructed into a hangar large enough to house the ship's complement of A-wings. Maybe the closest thing to a carrier ship any rebel faction has. Walking its halls, Hera had felt keenly aware that it was the largest ship in any rebel hands that she'd ever seen.

Now, on the bridge, standing with her own crew, Commander Sato, the pilots of Phoenix Squadron, with Ahsoka – Hera realizes that she's never been in a room like this. A command center, aboard an armored ship. Her parents had made plans around campfires, in caves and hideouts, using handheld projectors, even at times drawing out maps and plans of attack through simple symbols in the sand. She'd done the same from back rooms in cantinas, in makeshift hideouts, in more talks around the dejarik board in the Ghost's galley than she could count.

But not this, gathered around Phoenix Home's control hub, as Sato guided them through a series of holo images, now displaying a small wave of Imperial shipping freighters.

"The Imperial shipments we've scouted in this area are usually made up of three hauler freighters with docking ports for two fighters each," Sato explains, as he switches the image to a close up of one of the freighters, clearly displaying its fighter docks and cargo bay. "Even with our smaller squad of A-wings, we believe we could successfully combat their defenses. But we've previously lacked a freighter large and maneuverable enough to pick up any cargo we could free."

Sato looks to her. "Could the Ghost accomplish this?"

Hera nods, quick. No doubt in her voice. "Yes sir, we can use a magnetic lock to pick up the crates."

"All right, Captain Syndulla."

It strikes her, hearing those words from Sato. It had already been true, in that having a ship was enough to make anyone a captain. But she'd also rarely heard the word, never insisting or wanting it from her crew. A few times they'd used it, but – most often it had been when Kanan or Chopper wanted to rib her. Never an unkindness, never disrespect, but –

From Sato, it was a different kind of respect. Something else Hera had never encountered before. She lowers her eyes, not at all expecting the startling hum of satisfaction that runs through her. Captain Syndulla.

Sato continues, "In that case, Phoenix squad can clear a path for you."

Hera promptly looks back up again. "With the A-wings busy with the fighters, the Phantom should be used to free the cargo."

Her eyes find Sabine even as she's speaking, and Sabine meets her gaze at once. "I can do that."

"Good," Sato says. "They use a position here –"

The holo changes once more, now to a star map, coordinates illuminated among an intersection of color-coded paths. "- to shift hyperspace lanes. Once they fall out of hyperspace, we estimate it will take them between ten and fifteen minutes to calculate their next jump."

"Short window," murmurs a pilot, callsign Phoenix One. But Hera presses on.

"We can manage it if we get the drop on them," she says. "Especially if we let at least one ship launch TIEs, they'll have to redock before jumping."

TIE Fighters lack a hyperdrive, without redocking they'd be dead in space. Too many TIEs would likely overwhelm their A-wings – the trick will be to draw out enough of them to keep the freighters from jumping, while destroying the others before they can launch. And then clearing out before any reinforcements can arrive.

It is daring. But it's also feasible. And if they can pull it off once, it could be a basis for disrupting Imperial supply lines into the future.

Another of the Phoenix Squadron pilots speaks up. "In that case it sounds like we should be waiting for them."

"I agree," says Sato.

Ahsoka had been standing apart from the others, closer to the wall and out of the light of the holo. She takes a step forward now, her eyes flickering among them. "Their next shipment should be within one cycle. You should all take the time to prep yourselves and your ships before we get in position."

Hera's already running through the standard list in her mind. Diagnostics for the Ghost's and Phantom's systems. Check fuel and ammunition levels. Rest, rations a few hours beforehand. Discuss angles of attack with Sabine and the pilots of Phoenix Squadron. She straightens, away from the console, ready to move the moment the holo flashes off.

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."

The problem with doing maintenance work on a space ship is that sometimes, there are stowaways. This particular one is bacterial, and Hera got a faceful of its little colony before realizing it had hidden away inside the hatch's locking mechanism.

It's almost painful to tuck herself away in her bunk, because there's so much repair work to be done, but --

Well.

The fastest way to cure something like this -- congestion, sore throat, chills, and all -- is to rest. The fastest way to rest is to nap, and Hera is trying very hard, blanket pulled up to her chin and eyes held determinedly closed. Unfortunately she aches, and her brain won't stop fuzzily running back and forth, so --

Mostly she's just waiting. It will probably be lunchtime soon. Or maybe dinner.

And then there's what comes after any new plan is announced – preparation. Target practice, assessing equipment and supplies, reviewing skills that could come in handy. Hera has been reviewing what they know of the Empire's primary communications tower on Lothal, distance, surrounding settlements or Imperial installations, routes in and out, likely weather fronts, flight times. She'll know more once they've run reconnaissance, as she considers the prospect of a flying a pickup with the Phantom, and every possible way she could be fired on in the process.

Eventually, once she's learned all she can for the moment, Hera sets this aside. Leaving the Ghost's cockpit, she climbs down, through the ship. Chopper's in the galley, playing Dejarik against the board, and she directs him to run a diagnostic on the Phantom so they don't run into any of the problems they faced on Fort Anaxes. Chopper reluctantly trundles off, and Hera continues onward, down to the cargo bay, its door and ramp already open onto the warm Lothal fields. She doesn't have to look too long to spot a slice of blue light above the high grass, swinging along the tops of the grass, occasionally singeing it. As she approaches, the sounds of it, the blade of the lightsaber sizzling through the air, become clearer.

She keeps up her approach, though she waits until Kanan notices before she speaks to him.

"How's it going?"

Hera returns to the cockpit, helping Chopper set them on a course back to Lothal. It's a roundabout route of hyperspace lanes – the Empire knows they fled, and knows they're likely to return, so it's all the better to take their time and avoid any paths they're likely to be monitoring. It'll also take a large bite out of their fuel supplies, more than Hera really wants to lose right now. But she knows it's worth it not to cut corners, not when the Imperials will be out for blood, not just for the new TIE they'd destroyed, but for spiriting Tseebo and all the intel he had away from them.

And that intel –

She forces herself to be patient, to take her time setting out the coordinates, in working through Chopper's frustrations with her insistence they take every precaution possible. And finally, with their course laid in and the coordinates of their first leg ready, Hera takes the Ghost into hyperspace, the ship shifting forward, the stars beyond them blurring into streaks of blue and white.

Hera doesn't linger in the pilot's chair. She leaves Chopper to monitor their progress, and then climbs down out of the cockpit. As she makes her way through the ship, she notices a light from the nose gun turrets, and stops for just a few seconds. But then she keeps moving, onward to the cabins, until she comes to a halt outside Kanan's.

At last, Hera reaches her cabin.

Like the others, there are two bunks built into the wall, and lights that flicker on when she enters. To the right there's a small table and chair, the table covered in datatapes, darkened holos, tools – they're mostly arranged for convenience, though some spillover has occurred. In the drawers beneath her bunk are her spare blaster, vibroblade, clothes, medical supplies. Some worst-case-scenario replacements for Chopper. The flight simulator her mother had found for her when she was a girl.

Hera doesn't look at the table. She only pauses long enough to reach to her cap, pulling off her goggles and setting them down among the datatapes. Without changing, without stopping long enough to think of anything else she might need to do, Hera walks to her bunk, and climbs into it, carefully settling in on her side and resting her head down on the thin bedding.

After they'd returned to Lothal, Hera had let Sabine and Zeb handle distributing the supplies among the refugees in Tarkintown. The Ghost had wanted her attention even before their run to Kaller – they were lucky that as eventful as the job had been, it hadn't included dodging TIE squads or other run-ins with the Imperial fleet. She first sets Chopper running general systems diagnostics, while she cleans off old data on the nav computer, then moves on to the engineering station. Chopper sends her the results of the diagnostics, then trundles down from the cockpit to help her lift away the panels for access to the hydraulics system.

She's finishing up the retuning when Chopper alerts her that Kanan and Ezra have returned. Hera only nods, climbing up from the maze of piping and leaving Chopper to reaffix the paneling as she heads down to the loading ramp. Hera hits the button to lower the ramp, opening the ship out onto the warm Lothal evening. She takes a few steps down, stopping short of the high grasses that surround the Ghost, and slips down to sit on the ramp, bending her knees and wrapping her arms around them. There's a light breeze and the tussle of lothcats nearby. And not too far in the distance are the outlines of the freight containers and decommissioned transports that have been converted into the makeshift homes of 'resettlement camp 43.'

And soon, there's the soft brush of footsteps approaching through the grass.