Chapter Text
Kanan sipped his caf while Hera talked on the holo with Commander Sato, no doubt receiving a new assignment. He heard her tone change, her voice drop to a whisper. Whatever this new mission was, it would be dangerous.
He stepped back towards the Ghost common area, sensing the rest of the crew within before he even got to the door. Zeb was sitting in his usual spot, in front of the Dejarik table, while Sabine helped herself to the caf Hera had recently brewed. Ezra was tending to Chopper, or so he believed, at least. The non-organic was more difficult to detect. Then there was the Pau’an in the corner, who was quick to block him out once she detected his presence. To be fair, they had agreed to stay out of each other’s heads.
Still, since the addition of the third force-sensitive on the crew, their collective dreaming became more frequent as they slept. The three would each be inside a dark cabinet on Lothal, the sounds of a mother and father crying as they were dragged away by men in white. Then they would be transported to the forested planet of Kaller, where blaster fire rang out just before a shrill “RUN!” erupted from the lips of a dying master. Finally, there would be flashes of blue and yellow lightsabers clashing, the bodies of Jedi younglings scattered about, and a temple guard would drop his blade and declare his willingness to do whatever it took so long as the child in the corner was spared. None were willing to speak about it. There was a certain recognition between them, of three children too scared to do anything while their lives were torn apart by the Empire.
The door opened, and he stepped inside.
“New mission?” Zeb uncrossed his feet from the table, laying them back on the floor.
“Not yet.” Kanan answered, emphasizing as he sniffed the air. “Hey, that smells pretty good, anyone going to offer me a cup?”
“Of what?” The Lasat answered-
-To which Ezra replied, “Well he clearly wasn’t talking about how you smell!”
Chopper’s familiar laugh and Sabine’s snicker hung in the air as Zeb tackled his apprentice.
He was so caught up in the sounds of their struggle that he was caught off guard by the hot steam rising off the mug being pressed into his chest. It was uncanny how quickly and quietly all 6 feet of Tsiri Ke could move.
“You’re distracted.” She pointed out, astute as ever.
“Well, they’re very distracting!” He defended himself. He heard the rustle of her arms crossing over her chest.
“Indeed, I cannot argue with that,” she agreed.
Hera came through the door next. Kanan couldn’t help but grin when he heard her scold the two hooligans who promptly stopped their wrestling at her entrance.
“We have our new orders.” She announced. “Sabine, we’re going to need your expertise on this one. It’s a rescue on Mandalore. The former royal family has contacted us in order to procure a way off of the planet. They fear the Empire is planning to launch an attack on them soon.”
Kanan thought he heard the Pau’an bristle, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Why would the Empire target House Kryze? They haven’t been in power since the Clone Wars, and no one has spoken out against the Empire since-” Sabine didn’t finish her statement. She didn’t have to. She had given them enough details about what had happened to her mother.
Hera shrugged. “It isn’t clear. But the stormtrooper presence outside of their building has tripled, and it appears select members of the family are being tailed.”
“So we need to stage a rescue under heavy Imperial surveillance, any ideas how?” Kanan asked.
“We should try to lift them directly from the house if possible,” Sabine suggested, “but we’ll need to find some kind of transport to and from the house. Something more subtle than the Phantom. Maybe a ground transport.”
The crew nodded in understanding.
After a moment of silence, Tsiri spoke up, her voice just slightly more flat than usual. “You’ll need Mandalorian ID cards to get into the district from the ground level.”
“No problem!” Sabine beamed, “should be easy enough to program some fakes.”
The rest of the planning proceeded easily, Kanan thought, almost trivially so. A simple drop in, pick up the royal family, and sneak back to the Ghost. But something bothered him.
“Okay, assignments!” Hera declared. “Kanan, Ezra, you’ll be in charge of distracting the guards. Zeb, you’ll drive the getaway craft. Sabine, Tsiri, you two will infiltrate and extract. Chopper and I will stay here on The Ghost.”
This time, he definitely detected the Pau’an stiffening.
“Captain Syndulla, would it not be better to have someone else to extract the royal family. Perhaps someone less… frightening in stature, such as Ezra or Kanan?” Tsiri protested.
Hera stood firm. “No, we’ll need your stealth skills and knowledge of Imperial guard changes to get inside the building.”
Tsiri bowed her head, but she couldn’t disguise that sharp inhale of irritation from Kanan’s ears. She had never requested an assignment change before, and he had never known her to physically react to a less-than-desirable order before.
“It’s settled then.” Zeb crossed his arms. “To Mandalore we go.”
The crew went their separate ways to finish preparations, but Kanan pulled Sabine aside before they entered the atmosphere of the planet.
“Sabine, listen to me,” he spoke as quietly as possible, “I need you to keep an eye on Tsiri… Something isn’t right here, and I want you to find out what it is if you can.”
“Of course,” she nodded.
“We’re ready for the drop!” Hera called from the cockpit.
The crew gathered in the loading bay, waiting for the ramp to drop. Sabine went first and checked to see that the ship remained undetected. Dusk had already set in, and a dim light from the city illuminated the sky in a hazy yellow against the deep blue of the night sky.
“Alright, coast is clear.” She announced.
Zeb, Ezra and Kanan stepped off, and then finally Tsiri, one foot at a time.
Slowly, she stepped back onto the planet she had not returned to since her birth.
Finding a landspeeder large enough to fit all five Ghost crew members plus the five Kryze family members was somewhat difficult, but stealing the landspeeder was easy enough for Sabine. Zeb griped about the cramped pilot’s seat, but they didn’t exactly have a better option. Any bigger, and they wouldn’t be able to pass unnoticed through the busy highways of the city to reach the upper city district gates.
The gate near the House Kryze home was at least at one point in time, impressive. The huge murals depicting ancient battles along its face were worn, obviously not maintained for a long time. Beyond lay a large buildings of glass cubes stacked on top of each other. It was unlike anything Tsiri had seen before. But more importantly, it was minimally guarded on the outside.
Sabine handed a programmed ID card to Zeb, who pressed it against the reader. Nothing.
“Uh- Specter Five…” He muttered, as a dull beep accompanied the ‘access denied’ message on the screen. “It’s not working.”
“Hang on, try this one!” She handed him another, but again, there was no response. “I don’t-” she looked over her cards again- “these are perfect cards, they worked on the model readers I built!”
“Perhaps we need to find another way.” Kanan suggested.
“And fast,” added Ezra, as a guard walking the top of the gate began to notice the trouble below.
Tsiri fidgeted uncomfortably, then reached back into the compartment on the back of her armor, pulling out a parcel she had always carried with her at the request of her father, but had never once taken out to use. She remembered his exact words- Tsiri Ke, by mind, body, and spirit you are undoubtedly Pau’an, as I am. However, by an ironic quirk of legality, you were born a fatherless child on Mandalore, thus this is your identity by law. Protect it, so that it may never end up in the wrong hands.
She pulled the gold foil coated card out between two fingers, and reached out between the two arguing in the front seats.
“Try this one,” she muttered.
Sabine’s eyes widened under her helmet. “A golden ID card? Those are only given to those born of Mandalorian royalty! How did you-”
Zeb snatched the card and pressed it to the reader, which lit up green. “Well who cares, it works!” He sped through the opening gate, away from the prying eyes of the trooper above. He drove under a covered awning, where the group would split up and later reunite.
“No, not good enough for me.” Sabine asked again, “how did you get this card?”
Tsiri shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid it is a long story. One we do not have time for now.”
There was a click as Sabine’s blasters left their holsters. Kanan jumped up from his seat.
“Woah woah-” He pressed himself between him, feeling the anger radiating from both the Pau’an and the Mandalorian. “What’s this about, Sab- Specter Five?”
“Who did you kill to get that card?” Sabine insisted, pushing her blasters past Kanan.
His stomach sank as he put the pieces together. Tsiri had been apprehensive about showing herself before the Kryze family. Sabine’s mother, Bo-Katan, had been the sister of Satine Kryze. Sabine’s mother had been killed by the Empire. The Empire Tsiri had only recently stopped serving. And then, Tsiri had produced a card that could only be carried by a Kryze.
“No. One.” Tsiri hissed through her teeth. “Now I suggest that we get a move on.”
“I don’t believe you.” Sabine continued.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tsiri saw Garazeb look down at the gold rectangle in his hands. His mouth and his ears dropped back as he looked at her, and she shook her head.
“Believe her…” He uttered, handing the card back to Tsiri. “Sabine, she didn’t kill anyone for that card.”
Finally, the blasters drew back. “What do you mean? Then how else-”
Her question was interrupted by a radio call of ‘she’s here’, followed by blaster fire.
“No time!” Kanan jumped free from the landspeeder, and the rest of the team followed suit.
“So much for distracting the guards…” Ezra shrugged, igniting his saber.
“New plan- Sabine, you stay here with Ezra and Zeb, find cover, keep the speeder safe. Tsiri and I will go find the royals and comm you with the pickup location.”
The team gave curt nods, then split off running in different directions.
Tsiri and Kanan dove for cover behind a squared off balcony, where Tsiri broke the glass and the pair rushed inside. After catching their breath, Kanan spoke again.
“Alright tell me. What do you have to hide about this mission?”
“I really do not think now is the time.” She huffed in response.
“No, I want to know why you didn’t want to come along.”
She kept walking down the corridor, towards the coordinates that had been given by the family. “I believe my presence on this mission may have compromised its integrity.”
“I got that-” He said through gritted teeth, following the sound of her voice. “But why?”
“You ask too many questions!” She growled, then lowered her voice. “This elevator. We take it up six floors and we should be in the suite where they are waiting.”
Kanan stepped into the elevator with a sigh. “Did you really kill someone for that card?”
“No.”
“Then how did you get it?”
She paused. “An ironic quirk of legality,” was her only answer.
The elevator stopped at their floor and the doors opened to reveal an older brown haired woman, a blond man of about the same age, a younger blonde man, and a boy and a girl with brown hair like their mother, all tied up in the center of the room.
“I sense-” Kanan gripped his lightsaber and ignited it as they stepped free of the elevator doors. Tsiri had begun to pulse with a distinctive rage.
Rapturous laughter broke out from the shadows of the back of the room.
“Now isn’t this a surprise…” A man’s voice followed. “When we found evidence of a missing force sensitive child from Mandalore, honestly, we had no idea.”
Hysterical laughter broke out again.
“Ohh tell me it’s true, please, it’s just too good. You were never full blooded all along, were you? And now you’ve come to rescue your family!”
Tsiri growled, her clan markings glowing. Kanan let out a shudder from the cold.
“This is NOT my family.” She hissed.
“Is it not? Because her face says otherwise…” The Chagrian dressed in grey and black stepped forward, motioning to the woman on the floor.
“What is he going on about?” Kanan asked.
The man proceeded as if he had not been interrupted. The purring ignition of a double-bladed lightsaber echoed within the room.
“So are you or are you not the missing ‘Tsiri Kryze’?”
The Pau’an unclipped a saber from her belt, flipping it open in a practiced motion, and letting the yellow blades spring to life.
“My name is Tsiri Ke.”
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2