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Rebellious
Part II: Bringing Home The Rain
They were late.
It was supposed to be a short trip, in and out, as fast as possible. Yet two days have already passed from their last check in, before it was decided that a radio silence will be kept while the group was in the Malachor star system, just to be sure, and they were still not back. The Ghost was already in the position they have planned on, ready for a quick pick up and even quicker escape if something went wrong; bringing trouble to the base they all worked so hard for would be a stupid idea.
Hera was trying to not look nervous. If she was nervous, the rest would definitely notice it. Then they will worry for Kanan and Ezra and Fulcrum, which was quite bad, because with brain occupied by something like that they would surely land themselves in some completely different problems, not paying enough attention. Then Hera would worry about them too and the situation would quickly turn into a clusterfuck of misery and accidents. Still, nervous she was and the radio-silence from the Phantom wasn't helping a bit.
It made sense, of course. If, by any chance, they were followed or worse yet, chased, they couldn't just lead the enemy right to the Ghost. Hera groaned. She was trying to keep herself occupied by planning a supply run and then another one and another along with a diversion, but her brain wasn't cooperating. She was about to toss the screen away, when the controls came to life, registering the ship she was so awaiting. Hera double checked, just to make sure her wishful thinking wasn't making her see things. The Phantom was still there, a little dot on the radar slowly but surely getting closer. Hera quickly activated the inner comm-link.
"Attention crew, get ready to jump!" she ordered. "I repeat, on your position and get ready to jump! The Phantom has returned, but they might have a tail!"
She observed the radar for a moment to check if another ship didn't jump out of the hyperspace, but for now, they were alone. Now a real question: will she dare to contact the Phantom? In the worst-case scenario, the small ship was taken over the enemy. The Ghost was pretty much invisible to them now, but breaking the radio silence would give the potential enemy a very easy way to find them. The only way to be sure that the Phantom crew was still their friends was for the other ship to make contact first.
"Come on, come on!" Hera murmured, practically praying to her radio. "Please, be okay!"
The Phantom was getting closer, still slowing down. So, no crash-landing then, Hera thought. Good.
"Hera, you guys still here?" the comm-link came to life with Ezra's voice.
"Ghost to Phantom, we're still planetside," Hera answered quickly, while her brain was working frantically. Why Ezra was contacting them, not Kanan? "Phantom, do you have a tail?"
"Um, no... I mean, negative, negative! No tail on us!" Hera chuckled. She definitely had spend some time with Ezra, just to explain to him how this thing was supposed to work. Or maybe not. His awkward speech was one of a kind, a definite proof that he was piloting the ship and nobody else.
"Phantom, you're free to land." Hera quickly repeated the good news to the rest of her crew. After that, there was just sitting in her seat and gritting teeth for her. Or not. The doors behind her seat opened with a hiss.
"Sabine?" Hera asked, turning around.
The Mandalorian girl smiled at her. "I think you want to say hi more than I do."
"I don't know what are you suggesting-"
Sabine rolled her eyes. "Oh, just go there! I'm not going to paint anything in here, I promise!"
Hera jumped out of her seat and hugged the girl tightly. Then she ran. Later on, she will need a way to bribe Sabine to not talk about this, but right now... Right now the only important thing was how fast her legs could carry her. She arrived just when the Phantom was finishing its landing. Her soul was overjoyed, but her eyes were catching everything that was off.
Ezra was doing the piloting; the landing wasn't bad, but still slightly on the sloppy side, not as straight as Kanan would do it. There were marks on the sides, black and freshly burned - blaster marks and fresh ones too - and a slight bent in the metal on the same side. Not big enough to be dangerous, but enough to be a part of some story Hera was not going to like. Still, they were home, so she smiled when the ramp opened up.
"You surely were taking your ti-" she started, but the words died in her mouth because Chopper slowly, very slowly moved onto the ramp, leading Kanan. Kanan who had bandages covering his eyes and was walking like a very old man, unsure of his surroundings. He looked tired, his back not as straight as is usually was, his shoulders punched down in obvious exhaustion, every step he made unsure, as if he was expecting the ground to escape from under his feet. Hera felt her heart breaking into tiny little pieces.
"What happened?!" Zed asked, quickly running towards the Jedi and helping him stand. He at least was able to do so, because she, she was frozen in place, able only to stare at the wounded man in shock.
"This and that," Kanan answered. "And a whole lot of other things."
"This is no time for joking!" Hera protested, finally able to do things. Damn that man, even in this shape he still said just the right thing to make her better.
"Your eyes!"
"I'm pretty sure he managed to notice that," another voice joined the conversation, soft one, but at the same time, dark.
"What is he doing here?!" Zeb growled, activating his weapon. Hera turned, looking for who could possibly agitate him so much. Then she saw him and immediately, she understood.
"What is he doing on my ship?!" Ezra, seemingly unaware of what sort of monster was standing next to him - no, Ezra was actually helping the man stand, the Sith was missing a leg - looked at the red and black figure with a brow furrowed in mild annoyance.
"How come everyone knows you but me?"
Darth Maul merely smiled.
The asshole, he was totally aware what sort of an impression he was making on her crew. Slowly, very slowly he raised his unnatural, yellow gaze to look at Zeb, then his eyes moved towards Hera. It was a challenging look, it was a look of someone who even wasn't taking her seriously.
What are you going to do now, his eyes were asking. What will you dare to do, oh captain?
Hera wanted to punch him, to feel the bones of his jaw breaking under her knuckles. She was painfully aware that it was impossible. Seeing Kanan and even Ezra in action was a proof enough for the Force wielders being much, much better at fighting than a ghost else. And Darth Maul wasn't just a Force wielder, wasn't just a student who lost his master so early he barely knew what he was doing at times nor he wasn't a literal child. What Darth Maul was, was a walking, breathing legend, a terrifying figure out of the stories from the Clone Wars that were closer to horror than anything else. Hera doubted that a missing leg would bother the Sith much, if he decided to murder them all.
"Um, don't kill him?" Kanan said. "He actually helped."
Chopper butted in, speaking so quickly in binary, it was hard to make sense of what he was talking about.
"The Inquisitors...another Sith... what?" Hera shook her head. "Slow down! I can barely understand you!"
The only answer was more angry beeping, through it was more of a stream of curses gathered from random collection of languages and translated into zero's and ones than anything else.
"His language skills are quite astonishing," Darth Maul commented with amusement.
"Can we like talk somewhere else?" Kanan proposed. "Just talk, without anyone killing anyone? The echo here is starting to get to me."
"We're not doing anywhere before I have a look at you in the Medbay," Hera made a quick decision. To the hell with the Sith, she had priorities! The possibility of what she was about to find under his bandages were filling her with dread, but he needed help. The Sith, oddly enough, didn't appear to be hostile. Heck, he was probably the one who bandaged up Kanan in the first place; Ezra had little to no experience with such things and the bandages were wrapped way too neatly for a beginner. Kanan was in no shape to do this on his own, at least not so well, so that was leaving just him, how weird it wasn't. If anything she heard about him was right, then they had a common enemy and way to few allies to space most unlikely options without carefully thinking about them. Maybe...
Kanan groaned, breaking her chain of thoughts.
"Not again!"
The Sith snickered. There was probably a story behind that, but Hera had her priorities. She also trusted Zed and Ezra to keep an eye on their... guest, while she was making sure Kanan was alright.
"What happened?" She asked, when they were alone. Him sitting on the lone narrow bed in the makeshift Medbay of the Ghost, while she was gathering everything she could possibly need from the shelves. Bandages, gauze, disinfectant, a handful of little bottles filled with things that could be useful in this situation, antibiotics... Hera was stalling and they were both aware of that.
"We weren't alone planetside," Kanan explained with a sigh, slowly pulling down his bandages. He wasn't liking it as much as she did, though he at least has a great excuse. "The Inquisitors were there."
"How did they know you will be there?" Hera blinked, head already full of suspicions and catastrophic scenarios. Was there some sort of a bug on their ship? Did the Empire actually had an inside man among the Rebels?
"They were looking for Maul," Kanan explained. Hera furrowed her brow.
"Isn't he a Sith?"
"He said he's not," he shrugged. "I don't know how much truth is in that, but they wanted him dead. Ezra bumped into him, because of course he would. Then we fought the Inquisitors together... or rather Maul waltzed through them and we joined the fun."
"That doesn't explain your wound," Hera said, trying to keep her cool. She was about to look at Kanans injuries.
"Well, the Inquisitors were not the only ones who joined us," Kanan grimaced. "Darth Vader showed up. It all turned into a mess. One of the Inquisitors played dead and managed to surprise me... and, well." He dropped the rest of the bandages with a sigh, then carefully pulled away a thick layer of gauze with a pained hiss.
The wound itself wasn't what Hera was expecting to see. She was ready for angry red burn, maybe an infection already setting... "Uh..." A base for cybernetic eyes, already put in place, wasn't what she expected to see at all. It looked unnatural, especially the empty space where his eyes were supposed to be, merged with material that had a metallic shine to it. The tissue around was still angry red and swollen, but it seemed to be clean, with no signs of infection.
"I don't really get it, besides the fact that I need other eyes than something butchered out of a droid...?"
"Butchered...?" Hera shook her head.
"I know that cybernetics are hard to come, with the Empire controlling everything at all, but surely..."
"Wait, what?" Kanan tilted his head. "Maul uh... used stuff that Chopper was stealing around."
"Maul?" Hera's eyes widened. "The delay weren't you visiting a medical center?"
"Oh, I wish it was," Kanan shuddered. "The delay is because we wanted to make sure that we don't have a tail."
That made much more sense than visiting a hospital. Even undercover, the risk would be too big. Still...
"How a Sith would know anything about biomechanic surgery?"
Because Chopper had close to no idea how living being worked besides the very basics and Ezra definitely wouldn't know. Not to mention, the older Jedi wouldn't let his Padawan close. She knew him well enough. The Sith was the only option then, no matter how crazy it sounded. Well, now they had a Sith onboard, one couldn't go more crazy than that.
"I... have no clue," Kanan admitted. "I know he used the Force... but it was weird. I'm sorry, I really can't explain it."
"Whatever he did, it looks good," she finally decided. "All you need now is a new set of eyes, huh?"
Which was a whole new world of trouble. After the Empire took over, it was harder and harder to get hands on decent prosthetics. It was even more difficult to find a medic capable of installing the new limbs, but they will get there when they will get there.
"How we would get these anyway?"
"We'll think of something," she put a hand on his shoulder. "Now let me put a fresh bandages on that."
Sadly, they had no bacta, but Hera hoped that keeping the wound clean would be enough for now. After she carefully wrapped everything back up, then gave Kanan a handful of pills to swallow.
"Rest," Hera ordered. He made a face, the one that instantly told her that he planned on disobeying her. With a groan, Hera pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Look," she started. "You need to rest. You're half dead on your feet and you're probably feeling even worse. The pills are about to kick in and the last thing I want to do today was dragging your unconscious ass back here. So stop being so stubborn. Lie down." Only after she said that, Hera remembered that he was a Jedi, and Jedi had that ridiculous resistance to chemicals and she had no idea if the painkillers are even going to work. She hoped that he was tired enough to forget about it too.
"Are you going to be fine?"
"It's a mess," Hera admitted. "And there are so many thing I don't know about... but what I know is the fact that I can deal with messes. I'm good with messes, before you all happened it was just me and Chopper."
And Chopper got much, much more tame than he was in the beginning. Reluctantly, Kanan pulled his legs up and carefully placed his head on the pillow. Exhaling deeply, he tried to relax, but definitely failed at that task. He was stiff as a board. Shaking her head, Hera walked out of the Medbay. Maybe a little bit of silence would do him good. Now, she had to deal with Ezra, poor Ezra who saw yet another person dear to him wounded and in pain. The life was sure hitting the poor kid hard and just where it hurt the most.
xxx
For someone who was missing a leg, Maul sure acted full of himself. Like nothing could go wrong. Well, Hera through, from his perspective it probably couldn’t be much worse than that. Not that the Ghost crew was in much better situation. When Hera had reentered the room where she left Ezra, chopper and their new... acquaintance to take care of Kanan, she expected - or rather hoped - that they will not wander off somewhere or do something... through in the Maul case it was doing anything at all.
There was a Sith on her ship. And not just any Sith, but the one that showed up first, after thousands and thousands of years where the Dark Force users were just a myth. The same Sith that after being killed suddenly reappeared during the Clone Wars and wrecked hell upon the neutral systems.
Cham Syndulla sometimes told tales about the Clone Wars and he sometimes mentioned the mysterious Sith, through Hera was never able to guess what her father intended. Were these a warning? Was he admiring the person with a will of such strength? Hera still had no idea. What she knew, was that he was shorter than she imagined him to be. To tell the truth, he was a bit shorter than the usual Zabraks were. At least she was pretty sure that he was one.
Currently, the Sith wasn't moving around her ship - thanks stars for small mercies - too occupied by freaking Zeb out. Mostly by just looking at him. Well, she had to admit, just sitting there and staring - Maul barely blinked and the bright, bright yellow of his eyes only added more to already intense stare - was more than enough. Even when all of the body language appeared to be fully relaxed - and that was just plain wrong, because he was missing that blasted leg and no person should act like nothing had happened after something like that, prosthetic or not! - , there was something utterly feral and dangerous, as if he was going to jump forward anytime, unleashing his lightsaber... But no, the weapon was definitely out of his reach and the Sith didn't seem to pay attention to it. Besides, what would be the point? He had no reason to attack them, no reason at all. if he did, he would do it while still on Malachor. Hera forced herself to look away from Maul.
Chopper was much more quiet and still than usual. From time to time, he moved his head as if he was checking on Ezra. Well, the moment he noticed Hera, his sensors zeroed on her. Ignoring the droid for now, Hera looked at the boy instead. Ezra appeared to be fine, physically at least. He looked distraught and terrified, and guilty, like Kanan getting stabbed in the face was his fault. Ridiculous. However pointing that one out definitely was not going to make the kid feel better.
Hera honestly had no idea how to make things better. And she had to say something, address her crew somehow, because they all already noticed she was there. Hera opened her mouth, hoping for some bright idea to come in just the right time, when the doors behind her opened suddenly.
"I was sitting in the pilot seat for awhile and since nothing seemed to be chasing us for now I decided to pop up for a minute and say he-" Sabine said, her voice warm and certain up until the point when it suddenly died in her throat. It was the moment when she noticed Maul.
Hera could hear her gasp and almost physically felt the Mandalorian girl stiffening.
"He-" she started, her voice rough and unfamiliar, like a stranger was talking through her mouth. " Ah, he's-"
Maul slightly tilted his head to the side. It was hard to tell what his face expression was; the black patterns were very misleading. But he looked her up and down, yellow eyes dancing between Sabine's face and armor only to stop at the helmet, to then slowly, very slowly return to her face. Now he suddenly had a face expression, one eyebrow raised while the other one lowered slightly. Corner of his mouth also went up slightly, pale surface of sharp teeth was contrasting brightly with his dark skin.
"Vizsla?" he asked, spelling out the word with a ridiculous amount of care, almost too much, like missing a single letter would be a crime.
In any other situation, Hera would laugh at how much of an overdoing it was. However now, with this enigma being the one who acted ridiculous… Just what was going on here, Hera had no idea. How a teenager could recognize a Sith at the first sight? Even stranger, how said Sith was able to recognize a teenager? Sabine made a small noise, Hera could hear her feet shifting on the metal floor.
"I-I-I... I think I need some time," she said. "I'm going to talk to you later."
Then, there was a hiss of the doors closed, right before Hera was about to turn around and ask what was going on. Zeb appeared to be as confused as her at least, while Chopper voiced his opinion in high pitched strings of binary cusses. Hera inhaled deeply. There were answers available to them. All she had to do was ask. Meanwhile Maul was still looking at the closed doors, his face betraying interest and a mild surprise if Hera was reading him right.
At the very least, the Ghost crew were not the only ones confused now.