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“Hey, kid,” said Ketsu, cutting off Ezra’s incessant babbling. “Be a doll and do me a favour, would you? Go out and check if we got tagged with a tracking device by those Imps.”
Sabine watched in amusement as Ezra’s face fell. “Uh, the whole hull?”
“Yep. The whole hull. You can earn your keep. You’re hitching a ride on my ship, after all.”
Ezra put on a pained smile. He glanced at Sabine as if looking for salvation, but finding none, he acquiesced. “Sure thing. I’ll be right back.” He trotted down the gangway into the cave and out of view.
Ketsu let out a relieved sigh. “When I signed up to run this mission with you, I didn’t know we’d be babysitting too.”
Sabine brushed her blue hair back from her forehead. Ketsu wasn’t really saying anything that Sabine hadn’t said about Ezra in the past, but it sounded harsher coming from her. “We’re not babysitting. Not really. He’ll be able to help with the mission.” At least she hoped so. Ezra was usually Kanan’s faithful shadow, but the Jedi had been called in to some top secret meeting, so Hera had sent Ezra with Sabine to ‘broaden his horizons’ on this easy mission. Unfortunately, that decision had left him the object of Ketsu’s ire.
“What help could he be? He’s just some kid.”
Again, Sabine’d had those thoughts before too, and yet… “If he was Mandalorian, he’d be considered an adult already.”
Ketsu scoffed and put her heels up on the instrument panel. “But he’s not. He’s just some punk kid from a backwater world. Anyway, why aren’t you more annoyed about his presence? Doesn’t his awkward flirting get on your nerves? He really hasn’t picked up on the fact you don’t swing his way, huh?”
Sabine hadn’t told Ketsu she’d decided she actually swung both ways after all, because she wasn’t sure what Ketsu would think. And she certainly wouldn’t bring it up now. “I’m not saying he’s not annoying, because he is. I’m just saying he’ll be a help.”
“How?” Ketsu’s voice was loaded with derision and scepticism.
Well, it wasn’t as if Sabine could say Ezra was a Jetii. Ketsu was still on probation with the Rebellion and wasn’t privy to the big secrets. “He, uh, is good at crawling through vents.”
By the time Ezra reentered the ship, sifting cave dust out of his shaggy hair, Ketsu was rolling around on the floor laughing. Ezra’s face pinched; he was aware he was the butt of the joke. Of course he was: the Force would tell him, if nothing else.
“No tracking beacons,” he said. “I’ll just, uh, go get ready.” He pointed back to the bunk he’d been assigned, then went to pretend to check his weapons.
As Ketsu continued to chuckle, Sabine felt a pinch in her heart.
Before long, they received the coded message that let them know it was time to infiltrate the base. Another agent, one they would never meet, had hacked the security holo system. It was now their job to infiltrate the remote outpost, extract a file of clearance codes, and get out. Sabine put her helmet on and followed Ketsu out of her ship.
Ketsu led them to a wastewater overflow grate in the cave. Between them, Ketsu and Sabine lifted the grate aside. Ezra opened his mouth, and Sabine, knowing what he meant to say, glared at him. It seemed he was learning to understand her expressions even with the helmet, because he cut himself off. He couldn’t offer to heft it with the Force, not with Ketsu around. Not until they could be sure she’d keep his secret. And so far, she wasn’t that fond of Ezra.
“Let’s go,” said Ketsu. “You’ll be fine, right, kid? You’re used to this sort of thing.” Ketsu chuckled, then entered the water system.
Sabine nearly stopped to check if Ezra was OK, but she instead turned away and followed Ketsu.
The climb through the stormwater system took the better part of a standard hour, but eventually they eased a grate aside and climbed into the Imperial outpost atop the mountain. As promised, the security system seemed to be on the fritz.
The three of them hunkered in a stark alley behind some refuse bins.
“Sabine, go check it out,” said Ketsu.
Sabine rankled at being given an order by her old frenemy, but this was her operation after all. She slunk forward and pulled down her view finder.
It took only a moment for her to see they had a big problem. This outpost was only supposed to have a skeleton crew, with two troopers on patrol at a time—easy numbers for them to deal with, and the reason Hera had let them run this mission without the rest of the Spectres. But instead, a whole company was lined up in the small internal square under the purple, cloudy sky, and more troopers patrolled the very catwalk they wanted to use to get to the offices. In amongst the company of troopers was the reason for all the extra staff: a high-ranking Imp in a white uniform, hollering at two troopers about how disappointed he was at the reliability of their security system. Normally, Sabine would just lob a bomb and be done with it, but the base was so small she might accidentally blow up the terminal with the codes too.
She slunk back to the others. Ketsu was crouching, poised with a Westar in hand, and Ezra sat with his arms crossed, sulking. She didn’t have time for whatever argument had occurred in her absence. “We have a problem,” she said. “We’ve arrived right while a higher ranking officer is here for an inspection. The place is crawling with troopers.”
“Haar’chak!” Ketsu swore.
“Do we abort?” asked Sabine.
Ketsu sighed. “We need those codes now or we’ll miss an important weapons shipment. There’s a team on standby ready to hijack it.”
Sabine knew that. Under normal circumstances, she’d do something crazy and get the job done. But she usually had Zeb being crazy alongside her, and Kanan performing minor miracles, and Hera ready to swoop in to pick them up when things got too hot.
She looked at Ezra, expecting to see the same hesitance that she felt. But when he raised his faceplate, his eyes shone with conviction. “We can do it.”
“Ezra, I don’t know…”
He reached out to hold her arm, then nodded his head in Ketsu’s direction. “How much do you trust her?”
Sabine shook her head. “Ezra, no.” She didn’t know she could trust Ketsu.
“What are you talking about?” Ketsu asked, but Ezra and Sabine just looked at each other. Could Ketsu be trusted enough for this?
“I’ll be the distraction while you two complete the mission,” said Ezra. “It’ll be fine. I do this all the time.”
“Not alone.”
Ezra grinned at her. “I’m not alone. You’re here.”
Sabine smiled behind her helmet. His conviction was catching.
“What is this all about?” Ketsu asked again.
“If you tell anyone, we’ll have to kill you,” said Sabine, and to be honest, she wasn’t fully joking. Ezra was very vulnerable out here as a Padawan away from his master. She had to make sure no one sold him out to the Inquisitors.
“Tell people what?”
“You’re about to learn a big secret of the Rebellion,” said Ezra. He stood and took out his unlit lightsaber in the grip that meant he was about to go blade-style, not gun-style. He walked to the end of the alley and looked back at them. “Get ready. I’ll distract them as long as I can, then catch up.” He smiled at Sabine, then looked Ketsu right in the eye, winked, and ignited his lightsaber. He closed his helmet and dug in his toes. Then, with a whirl of blue light, he was around the corner and the sound of pandemonium broke forth.
Sabine was amused to see that Ketsu was frozen. She grabbed the taller woman’s arm and hauled her up. “Come on,” she said.
“He’s a…”
“Yup.”
Ketsu followed Sabine up to the catwalk. Only one trooper was up there now, the others having joined the fray below. Sabine knocked the trooper off and then took a moment to appreciate Ezra’s whirling presence hopping all over the courtyard like a crazy orange-and-white loth-cat, deflecting trooper bolts and taunting them. He’d improved a lot lately. She didn’t know how to wield a saber herself, but she knew enough to recognise that he was no longer flailing for survival like he once had, but rather executing an elaborate dance of controlled violence.
“I never thought you were so cold, Sabine.”
“Huh?” she said distractedly as she scurried along the catwalk.
“Your friend has just given his life for the cause, and you’re just walking away.”
“His life?” Sabine scoffed. “He’ll be fine.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“Take another look, Ketsu. He’s a pint-sized warrior.”
Ketsu looked. Half the troopers were now unconscious in the courtyard, and the officer was cowering behind a crate. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Sabine grinned. “I told you he’d help. Now, come on.”
They worked together to incapacitate the remaining staff inside the offices and access what they thought was the main office. Sabine started hacking the terminal while Ketsu covered her.
The door whooshed open, and Ketsu tensed, then held her weapon aside. The door closed again. “We’ve got company,” said Ezra in a breathless voice.
“We already had company,” said Sabine as she hacked through the terminal’s firewall.
“We have more company. Another platoon.” He turned and stabbed his lightsaber into the door, holding it there to melt the blast shield to the door panel, locking them in place.
“How are we supposed to get out of here, di’kut?” said Ketsu.
Ezra snorted. “Out the window, of course.”
Sabine took a moment to glance out said window. It looked out over a drop many stories down to a jagged, rocky doom far below. Across the ravine was a smooth metal wall with a small lip of a walkway around the bottom one hundred metres down: another building on another part of the peak.
“My jetpack can’t carry all three of us,” said Ketsu.
“It won’t need to,” said Ezra. “We’ll be fine.”
Sabine was paying little attention to the argument. Instead she was searching. And searching. And searching.
“Uh, we have a problem. We’re in the wrong office. The codes aren’t on this terminal.”
They all looked to the left-hand wall. “Next door,” said Ketsu. “Haar’chak! Do you Spectres always have luck this bad?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” said Ezra. He put his lightsaber on his belt and stood under the air vent in the lofty ceiling. “Time for an Ezra special, I guess.” He took off his helmet and reached up. The grate slid away, leaving an open rectangle.
“Can you hack a terminal?” asked Sabine.
“Talk me through the hard bits?” Ezra tapped his comm, and then leaped up ridiculously high, catching the lip of the air vent.
“Whoa,” gasped Ketsu.
Ezra wriggled up. Then he wriggled some more. And a bit more. His feet dangled and flailed. “Oh no,” he muttered, then dropped down.
“Why aren’t you on your way?” hissed Sabine.
“I don’t fit!” he hissed back.
“What? You’re our vent guy! You went in one just the other day.”
“That was a factory vent! They’re bigger. I don’t fit in this one.” His eyes were shiny as if he were tearing up.
She whipped her helmet off to glare at him. “I’ve seen you go into these office vents before! What happened?”
Ezra threw out his arms in a dramatic fashion. “Puberty! Puberty happened!”
Somewhere behind Sabine, Ketsu snorted.
Sabine bit her lip. Now he mentioned it, his shoulders were straining against his tunic. Since when?
“Can you cut through the wall?”
“Yeah, but it’ll take a while. Can you go through the vent and start hacking while I cut the wall so you can come back through?”
Sabine looked up at the vent doubtfully. “How would I get up there?” She couldn’t jump that high, and she didn’t for a moment think that Ketsu would offer her jetpack.
Just then, bangs sounded from outside, then the screech of metal. The troopers had brought machinery to cut through the melted door. They didn’t have much time.
“Throw me,” she said.
He blinked, but then he held out a hand and she felt a gripping force around her, even though she saw nothing. She jumped to start the process, and felt him boost her jump, lifting her high enough to catch the lip of the vent.
She slithered her way in. Her helmet clanged on the side, making a loud noise. Even so, she was glad she was wearing it. She didn’t know how Ezra could climb around in these filthy, dusty vents without adequate protection. Gross.
There was a single officer and one trooper in the office next door, both of whom were distracted by the blue lightsaber sticking through the wall, slowly cutting a curve. She took them out with two quick shots from her vantage in the vent and quietly dropped down.
She locked the door then sprinted to the terminal. This time, she had the right one. As she hacked in and downloaded the codes, the lightsaber advanced around a circle in the wall, leaving a glowing arc behind.
Just as she got the data, the circle completed, the lightsaber retracted, and then the contents of the circle shot away through the wall, pulled by the Force. The sound of screeching metal sounded through the hole: the troopers trying to break through the door Ezra had melted. Before she could pull out the chip and go back, Ezra and Ketsu jumped through, and then Ezra pulled the circle of wall back into place. Its melted edges rejoined as they cooled.
“Thought we’d try our luck on this side,” said Ketsu as Ezra stuck his lightsaber through the door of the second office, melting it closed too. Confused shouts vaguely sounded from outside, but Ketsu ignored them and blew the window out with three quick shots. “You got the codes?”
Sabine took the chip out of the terminal. “Yup.”
Ketsu snatched it from Sabine’s hand and tucked it inside her belt pouch. Sabine went to take it back, then stopped: Ketsu was the mission leader. She should have it.
“You sure you two can get out of here?” Ketsu asked.
“We’re sure,” said Ezra, though Sabine wasn’t.
“I can’t come back to get you until I’ve transmitted the codes.”
Sabine set her shoulders. If she had to stay here and look out for Ezra until rescue came, it’s what she’d have to do. Spectres looked after their own. “Go,” she said to Ketsu. “Complete the mission.”
With a nod, Ketsu ignited her jetpack and flew off into the sky.
Sabine turned to the door. Metal screeching sounded outside their new office. It was only so long until the troopers got inside. “How long do you think we can hold off their shots?” Sabine asked.
“Why would we need to? Let’s just go through the window.” He jammed his helmet back on his head.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a jetpack.” Though she really, really wished she had one.
Ezra looked her way, the moment heavy. “Do you trust me?” His voice was calm and measured, somehow deeper than his usual register. For a moment, she felt like she was looking at an Ezra from the future, one who had completed his Jedi training. She shivered. But likely the effect was just the weird echo of his stupid plastoid helmet.
Before she could consider her words, her voice sounded, “I trust you.”
He bent and motioned to his back. “Get on.”
“What?”
“We’re going to jump.”
Sabine scoffed. “Have you seen how far down it is?”
“Not down; across. You’ll have to hold on to me. My hands will be busy.” He scratched the back of his head. “Uh, on my lightsaber, not on you.” He held his hands up. “My actual lightsaber! Stars above, I’m not trying for double entendre’s, honest! Just climb aboard.” He winced. “Karabast!”
Sabine snickered behind her helmet. He was so flustered!
The door behind her groaned as it started to give way. She had two choices: go down in a blaze of glory in this office, or trust her life to Ezra. She knew which she should choose as a proud Mandalorian, and yet she wrapped her arms around Ezra’s neck and gripped his sides with her knees. They must look ridiculous. He was smaller than her. Well, a little bit. And she was wearing armour. But he didn’t buckle under her weight. He adjusted his grip on his lightsaber, set his stance, and then ran towards the window.
Somehow, the leap still took her by surprise, like she couldn’t believe it was actually happening. They sailed out into the air between the buildings in a strong arc, farther than a human could usually leap. Sabine felt like they jumped in slow motion. She gripped Ezra’s rough orange tunic, felt the thrum of power in him, a thrum that almost called to her, but she steadfastly ignored. She looked down at the rocks far below. A buzz surrounded them as Ezra ignited his lightsaber. Then, with a jolt, they slammed into the wall lightsaber-first.
He’d stabbed the lightsaber into the wall, angling it slightly downwards. He braced the hilt with both hands and put his armoured knee against the wall as they slid down, unzipping the metal as they went. It would be pretty obvious which way they went, what with the glowing score above them, but they scraped down the wall at far less than freefall speed. Sabine shook her head in disbelief. How had this actually worked?
Sabine’s feet hit the ledge at the bottom first. She caught Ezra as the jolt made his hand slip and he fumbled the landing. Bolts hit the wall around them, and Sabine covered Ezra with her body, shooting up at the window they’d jumped from, far above. The troopers had broken through and were taking pot shots at them.
Ezra grabbed her wrist and dragged her along the narrow ledge at the bottom of the wall. She walked backwards, continuing to cover him. There was a screech behind her and then a grate flew out and dropped into the further depths of the mountain that Sabine had not yet had a chance to contemplate.
Bolts still speckled the metal wall around them and were occasionally deflected back at the window by Ezra’s saber. Sabine kept shooting her Westar as Ezra dragged her into a dark tunnel. She turned and ran into the dark behind him. He held his saber up, painting the walls blue, as they ran up the sloped tunnel.
It wasn’t until they found a cross-path and took a moment to rest that Sabine went to pieces. Her knees shook and she leaned against the wall. She whipped her helmet off and took deep, gasping breaths.
All of a sudden, Ezra took hold of her shoulders. “Hey, Sabine! Get yourself together! Since when does a little trooper fire get to you?” But his eyes were wide. He knew their escape hadn’t been ‘a little trooper fire.’
Though it wasn’t the trooper fire that had spooked her. She looked into his terrified blue eyes, and felt a different terror of her own.
She had trusted him. She had trusted him with her life. That scared her hardened Mandalorian heart more than any crazy battle.
But she wasn’t just a Mandalorian anymore. She was a Spectre too. Her breathing settled.
“You with me?” Ezra asked.
Sabine plonked her helmet back on. “I’m with you.”
“Good, because you’ll need to take it from here.” Ezra’s hands slid down her arms as he slowly keeled over, slumping to the muddy ground.
She hurriedly checked him for wounds, but finding none, she grinned wryly. He’d worn himself out with all those antics. For all that he was starting to resemble the adult warrior he’d be one day, he was still just a kid. At least for now.
It was Sabine’s turn to carry Ezra on her back. It wasn’t easy, as he was nearly as tall as her now, but she managed. She soon identified which path hooked back to the stormwater tunnel they had originally climbed at the beginning of the mission and plodded her way back to the ship.
She mostly expected to find Ketsu gone by the time she got to the cave and was preparing for a fight, because for the last quarter of the journey she could hear troopers somewhere behind her in the tunnels, looking for them. But much to her surprise, Ketsu was still there, the engine running and vibrating nearly as much as her own patience. “Let’s go, let’s go!” she cried.
As soon as Sabine got herself and Ezra aboard, Ketsu manoeuvred the craft out of the cave and took off along a twisting ravine to avoid detection. Before long, they were angling up towards space.
Sabine carried Ezra to his bunk and tipped him off her back, covering him with a blanket. Then she went to sit in the copilot’s chair just as Ketsu threw them into hyperspace.
“Did you get the codes out?” she asked.
“Yup. Mission accomplished. Thanks for your help. Is the kid OK? Is he dead?”
“Nah. He just pushed himself too hard. Force stuff can do that, even more than brawn stuff.”
Ketsu snorted. “The poor widdle baby. Did you have to haul his ass all the way out of there?”
Sabine frowned. “You should stop that. It wasn’t like that, and it’s quite rude, you know. Give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s come a long way in a short time.”
Ketsu shook her head. “Sorry, OK. I thought mocking him was what you did.”
Sabine shrugged. “Sometimes, yeah. But I respect him too. I respect all the Spectres.”
“You really have changed.” Ketsu’s voice was wistful.
But Sabine didn’t want to look back to the past. “I have a team now.”
Ketsu took out a couple of ration bars and handed one to Sabine. They ate in silence for a few minutes.
“Did the kid actually help?”
Sabine swallowed her mouthful. “You saw.”
“I saw something. Looked like cutting walls, and jumping around and getting lucky.”
“That was Ataru.”
“Huh?”
“Lightsaber form IV. There’s more to it than ‘leaping around and getting lucky’.”
Ketsu shook her head. “Pro tip? Don’t let other Mando’ade hear you rattling off technical Jetii jargon.”
Sabine flushed. She couldn’t help picking up bits here and there. The Ghost was a fairly small ship.
“And I swear, Sabine, if I one day find you running around with a lightsaber instead of trustworthy Mandalorian weapons, I’ll knock your head in.”
Sabine snorted. “Oh, come on. That’s never going to happen. My one true love will always be explosives.” She folder her arms behind her head and hooked a knee over the arm of her chair. Whoever heard of a Mandalorian with a lightsaber? The darksaber, yes, but that was different all together, and had been lost for many years besides.
It seemed Ketsu was thinking of the famous blade, too. “Yeah, a blade would be a stupid idea. Because then you’d have to wear a cape to match the Tar Vizsla vibe.”
“No way. Capes are stupid! They’re so dangerous. You never know what they’re going to get caught on in battle!”
Their conversation continued in such a fashion throughout the hyperspace jump.
As they approached the marker, Sabine stood to go check on Ezra and see if he needed food. But before she left, she laid a hand on Ketsu’s shoulder. “You did good today, Ketsu. Congratulations on a mission completed.”
“Thanks, Sabine. You too. Can’t say it went smoothly, but we got the job done.”
Sabine gripped Ketsu’s shoulder harder, digging her fingers in around her pauldron to apply pressure to her flesh. “And you’d better keep news of what Ezra is to yourself, if you know what’s good for you. I’m not the only one who’d take exception to hearing you’d done otherwise.”
Ketsu looked up with laughter in her eyes, but when she met Sabine’s gaze, her expression sobered. “Understood. You do care about that kid, don’t you?”
“He’s family. All of the Spectres are.”
“Understood.”
Sabine nodded, then left Ketsu to pilot in peace. Then she went to go check on Ezra, because that’s what Spectres do.