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"Hera! Wait! There’s still-" She jumped and hurled herself over debris in the cloud of crushed duracrete that filled the landing bay. Kanan tugged her back a split second before a bolt singed right where she’d been standing. The op was over.
It had been over before Hera ran headfirst into this mess. An intense fight between rival bounty hunter groups, the best they could guess. But, Hera had insisted that she heard a voice too young to be in the situation. They could be trafficking minors. It happened on Ryloth far too often for her to ignore.
"What are you doing?! It’s too late, Hera. I really do not think it was what you think it was." A single ship was taking off. Whirls of exhaust and blaster smoke whooshed over the two of them.
"Why is there only one ship then?" Kanan shook his head. "I’m guessing the owner of a second ship is bloodied on the ground near here. It was likely just a disagreement on payment or something. I know you know what it’s like." He gestured to the mess.
"And I know that you don’t mind your own damn business regarding such disagreements. I’ll comm Chopper to start the ship up but I want to make sure nobody got left behind." He sighed, watching as Hera continued to move around the bay. For now, at least, it seemed that the blaster shots had been coming from whomever was in the now gone ship.
Good, because that woman never kriffing acts with any sort of self-preservation. She’s going to get herself killed one of these days.
"Kanan!" He ran towards her, terrified for a brief moment she’d been hurt. Hera was on her knees, looking at what appeared to be a Mandalorian. An incredibly small one, at that. Colorful armor with the paint missing in places bolts had hit. "Hera, I don’t know if they’re still there."
She had her hand partially under the helmet checking for a pulse when he knelt down. "You’re being ridiculous. You damn well know if they’re alive or not. This is a child! The Mandalorians left a child behind! They would never... I have never known any to leave family behind."
She looked over at him, her eyes glossy with unshed tears. He put a hand on her shoulder. "I don’t know if bringing an unconscious Mandalorian onto your ship is a great idea." Kanan was almost positive this was simply a small adult Mandalorian.
He hadn’t known Hera for all that long, but he knew the next look well. She’d adopted this person already. They would be on the ship until they no longer needed a surrogate mother. "Nobody deserves to suffer like this. We can at least patch them up and get them some pain medication."
He sighed, running through countless scenarios in his mind where an injured Mandalorian waking up on an unknown ship near a Jedi went very, very poorly. But Hera was right. She knew he would never leave an injured person to fend for themselves and she knew that simply using her voice was incredibly persuasive. "Okay, Hera. Let’s get them onto the ship."
********
Hera let out something between a sigh and a sob when Kanan removed the person’s helmet. A child. It really was a child. What had happened for someone this young to have been in this situation? Kanan winced as he lowered their head carefully back down to the table. "Human. They’ve lost a decent amount of blood."
Kanan himself was shocked to see it wasn’t an adult. He could feel the anger this person had at the galaxy. What could have happened to them to be this young and so hurt? He felt guilt at having assumed they were just a bounty hunter. Guilt at trying to talk Hera out of saving them.
Saving people was what they did. Hera had an innate need to protect and nurture- he’d learnt that about her quickly after Gorse. While she was able to reunite most people with family, sometimes the crew just got bigger. It had rubbed off on him enough that he’d brought back a Lasat recently.
He was hurt, yes, but most importantly, Kanan saw he needed family. He’d lost everyone at one point, too. Nobody should be alone after such tragedy.
He pushed down the fears he had regarding Mandalorians in general and continued to look them over. "I don’t see any major injuries other than the gash on the side of their neck. Someone managed to hit right between the beskar pieces, didn’t they?" It was a stupid question, one made simply to keep Hera somewhat focused on his voice.
She’d already known the kid was bleeding, and that it had not been a blaster wound. Her hand had come away bloodied after her search for a pulse. This violence had to have been done by someone who knew the armor well. Someone who knew exactly where the beskar ended.
Anyone able to get close enough to harm a Mandalorian in this way certainly had that Mandalorian’s trust. Their family had left them for dead because they were the ones who had caused the injury. Hera grabbed gloves, bacta, rags, and suturing supplies- anything she thought they may need- and got started.
"I can stitch this up after I numb it. Just keep it cleared of blood the best you can, love." His days soaking up his own blood had been coming in handy quite often for his spot of co-pilot, crew member, or whatever his title was on the Ghost.
He watched as she bit her bottom lip, focusing hard on the task at hand. He’d stopped blotting the wound, but everything was still plenty visible. "Huh. Well, now I know why I haven’t lost as much blood since you joined the crew."
"Are you accusing me of using the Force to slow down blood loss?" She shrugged, starting to cover the now stitched area with bacta. "Not so much accusing. I’m watching you do so now and realizing my blood wasn’t suddenly better at clotting after you started following me around like a lost pet."
She was attempting to block a playful smile as she covered the wound with gauze. She stood up afterwards, the two of them looking the child over once more for visible injuries, seeing none. They were still unconscious. Hera tilted her head to adjust her now sore neck. "Okay, Kanan. Get us out of here before people get suspicious."
He raised an eyebrow. "Me?" She nodded. "Yes, you. I want to be here when they wake up so they aren’t scared. I know you’re not the most comfortable with Mandalorians. I have read some about the Jedi." He sighed and nodded, walking out of the medbay.
********
Sabine woke with a jolt, immediately sent into a panic. Hera kept her voice soft and low. "You’re safe. I promise." She stared at Hera, trying to remember the name of the species she looked to be. "Who are you and what did you do to me?" This was not where she’d lost consciousness.
She grabbed for her blasters, but they had been taken. Instead, she went to stand up to deck Hera, but was forced back down by the intense, sudden, throbbing pain in her neck. "My name is Hera. My friend, Kanan, and I found you unconscious. We are on my ship, the Ghost. We had to give you stitches on the left side of your neck. It has been coated in bacta and patched over. You were out at least an hour."
Twi’lek. That’s what she was. Didn’t matter. She was getting off this ship. "Woah! You’re seriously injured. I wouldn’t-" She pushed Hera out of the way and walked into the hall.
"Wouldn’t what? Who are you? And I don’t mean your name or species. What were you doing there?" The energy bounding from this injured child was incredible. She’d never met someone both hostile and able to actually fight after an injury like that.
Maybe Kanan could?
"Running an op. What for is not important." More doors to cabins and closets opened and harshly closed as the kid figured out the best way to work them without actually stopping to hit buttons. "We heard the commotion on the way back to my ship. I was concerned when I heard your voice. I thought you might need help-"
"I don’t need anything but an escape pod." She turned around to look at Hera, accidentally pulling the stitches as she did so. She let out a pained scream and Hera ran back up to her and tried to calm her. "Okay, okay, this can be fixed!" Sabine pulled her hand away from her neck and felt faint.
That really was a bad cut. That was a lot of blood. Blood was not scary, but that much blood from her own body all at once? Kanan had heard the two of them and opened the door to the cockpit, stepping out to see them. They froze, both with bloodied hands. Sabine no longer simply felt faint. She was going to faint.
She turned around to make a run for it, away from the two strangers.
*******
When she woke, she was laying in an actual cabin bed, wrapped in blankets. "You’re okay. Again." Hera’s voice. "Really, really, really suggest you stay laying down. We have no more bags of your blood type, nor any compatible ones left on board."
They’ve given me blood? Why waste it on a random person?
"How-" Hera looked up from her datapad. "I try to keep the medbay well stocked, and because we don’t always know the people who need help, I keep quick little blood type tests for humanoids." Sabine sighed and looked at the other bed above her. "Do you want to go to a medcenter?"
"We wanted to get you cared for, but neither of us were sure if you were trying to lay low and avoid someone." An appreciated gesture, if it was the truth. "I don’t need my biometrics ran and located in the system." Hera nodded. "Okay." She sat the datapad down and put her hands on her thighs, smacking them before standing.
"Will you let one of us help you so you can get your strength back?" This was, Sabine was sure, a trap. But what choice did she have? She didn’t answer Hera. "Well, please tell me if you need food or drink, okay? I left you some water beside the bed, and some crackers. Sorry we don’t have anything better."
********
"Hera! You can’t leave a Mandalorian alone! Not one that thinks they’ve been captured!" Hera shooed him from her seat. "It’s fine, Kanan. They’re napping. Besides, Chopper is up now." She turned as the ship left hyperspace, ready to land it right where the intel stated the supplies would be.
By right where the supplies would be, she meant she was going to hide the ship nearby and be the distraction while Kanan loaded the crates. "Okay. Chop, watch our new friend. Hera? Ready?" She nodded and lowered the ramp. Only a few guards around the loading area of the Imperial compound, which would be easy.
She’d changed clothes into something more flowing and revealing, ready to use a ploy they turned to often.
Kuri’au.
A power that worked on most people. She wandered out into the open area in front of the compound, looking around in confusion. She looked towards the guards and spouted nonsense in Ryl, heavily accented. One of the guards walked up to her and removed his helmet, smiling.
An extremely pale man with short, stubby hair. She smiled back and began speaking more slowly in her native language, essentially telling a story about a tooka-cat chasing her because it wanted to bite her lekku. She knew the man couldn’t understand her in the slightest after she gestured for an answer and he said yes.
Well, unless the man really was sexually attracted to tookas. She hoped not. Another guard got curious and walked over. "She’s cute. She speak Basic?" Hera looked between the two of them, appearing confused. "Guess not. Hey. How old you think she is?"
She only needed to get one last guard over here. She reached up to the one without a helmet on and caressed his face. She sweetly called him a fucking pervert in Ryl, slowly running her hand down to his armor.
She saw the last one walking over, determined not to miss her little show. "Old enough." She continued sweet talking, while in reality explaining she was lying to their faces and that some human men were beyond stupid when faced with a lek or two. She showed Kanan a subtle hand gesture to let him know he was good to go.
She kept talking to the men, 'flirting' just enough to keep their attention. Kanan got the last crate of supplies and loaded them, preparing the ship for take off. Time to leave. She pointed behind the men for them to look, running the moment they turned away.
They were swearing when they realized Hera was gone. She wasn’t overly concerned. She was a fast runner and she was halfway to her ship by the time they caught on. She was safe, until a part of the flowing outfit became tangled in a bush of thorns. She looked behind her as she tugged, cursing.
She had no knife, nothing. The tugging was making things worse. "Kriff!" They started shooting at her. She looked towards her ship, the ramp down and waiting. She saw the kid. She saw Chopper tugging on them with his manipulator arms.
The kid was leaving. Had found all their weaponry. Chopper was cussing them out. The guards got closer. Shots hit closer. She watched the kid leave. She watched Chopper fly up to the cockpit level of the ship. She pulled as hard as she could, the thin fabric ripping up to her abdomen on one side.
The rebound of the thorns sent them into her thigh hard, but she pulled away and began to run again. More shots. Three thuds to the ground. Then, nothing. She could feel blood beginning to run down her leg as she looked around.
The guards were down. The kid had nearly ran her over, pulling her into the ship and yelling for them to go. Shaking, she sat on the floor in the cargo hold as the ship took off. Kanan slid down the ladder nearly immediately. Gods, he’d let her droid fly the ship alone.
"Hera!" He ran over, moving her hand that was poorly covering the large scratches. "I’m okay, love. I didn’t mean to scare you." The kid watched them as Kanan left after giving her his sweater to cover up with, only to return with medical supplies and new clothing.
Fear ran through Sabine. She’d used all the extra blood up on her earlier. Kanan was sopping the stuff up, it seemed. But then, it slowed. It stopped. He covered the rather superficial patch of scratches in bacta gel and a gauze pad, taping it to her thigh.
Sabine was brought away from the scene by the droid poking her and dragging her to the ladder. Privacy. Hera was going to change clothing. She did as prompted, heading upstairs and checking her own injury out in the refresher mirror.
By the time she left the refresher, Hera was back in the pilot’s seat with Kanan next to her. "Hey, come here." Sabine cautiously walked into the cockpit. "Thank you. I think you saved my life back there. You didn’t have to do that, but I am glad you did."
Sabine looked between them. "Who are you people?" Kanan laughed. "Hera, and I am Kanan. Droid is Chopper." Hera looked back at her. "Mandalore? Ready to go home? Wasn’t my intention to drag you into this mess."
"Anywhere but Mandalorian territory is fine. I’m not exactly welcome there anymore. I kriffed up." Kanan looked at Hera and sighed. "You don’t have anyone to go back to?" She asked, sweetly.
"Not anymore."