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Rebellious
Part III: Diving Down The Current
"Oohhh...crap, crap, crap, crap!" Sabine chanted as she hurriely pushed buttons on the control panel of her newly stolen TIE-fighter.
All she was trying to do on this mudball of a planet was to find a doctor who knew how to put eye implants where they were supposed to go and who wasn't going to ask too many questions and instead she ended up with a tail of storm troopers emptying power cells of their blasters in her general direction.
"Crap, shit, crap!" Sabine gritted her teeth as a pang of pain coming from her forearm reminded that some of them actually were able to hit a target. Her sleeve was unpleasantly wet and sticky, and her fingers were shaking and sloppy, but she still was able to move them. Which was good.
Instead of a good insectoid doctor with four arms she was looking for, Sabine found a human male. That already made her feel suspiscious, but the man assured her that he and S'Waa were good friends.
Sabine wanted to bail back then, but Kanan needed help, desperately so. If there was a chance of getting that help, she was not to turn her back on it.
It was a mistake, of course. He set Imperials on her, that trash of a man, and Sabine had to run. The fact that her armor was too recognizable to wear it while doing that sort of a job wasn't helping at all.
"I'm never going to take it off again!" Sabine promised herself through gritted teeth. "I'm going to sleep in it. I'm going to take a shower in it!"
The piece of junk of a TIE-fighter she was currently stealing from a mechanic workshop apparently was there for a reason other than a paintjob. She managed to turn the engine on, but it sounded all wrong and the steering was way off.
"Don't crash, you piece of junk, don't crash!" At least it was flying - for now - and Sabine risked pushing the jets as much as she dared to get away from her pursuit.
It was only a temporary thing, Sabine was well aware of that, but at this point she needed time to check just what was wrong with the TIE. Trying to get off planet in a damaged vehicle was definitely a bad idea, but if something really important was screwed up, then she was in a real pinch.
"Engines... okay, life support... surprisingly okay it just stinks because it hates buckets as much as I do..." she muttered, quickly skimmig through the massive wall of text the computer just spat out. "Oh, Karabast, you have to be kidding me! Weapons are off?! Weapons?!"
It felt like the Universe was just making fun of her at this point. She was a Mandalorian who was missing her armor and now she couldn't even shot people. What sort of a luck was that?!
"Okay," Sabine said, swallowing loudly. "Okay, you can still do this. Radio, don't fail me now, you're my only hope!"
The communication system was on, which probably served as the best news today, because everything else was so shitty, sewers looked much more appealing right now.
A shot tore the sky on her left, red flash momentarly filling the tiny, uncomfortable cockpit with red light.
"Seriously?!"
For storm troopers, these guys were pretty damn fast. Sabine could see the TIE that shoot at her and another one on the opposite side, both following her. she was still better than them, but all she could to was flying and evading shots. Her luck had to run out at some point. That, or the fuel. People usually don't fill the tanks on something that ws send to get repaired. She was rather screwed in that department too.
Cursing even more furiously than moments, before, Sabine started working on the radio, while keeping an eye on the TIEs that followed her.
It was difficult. She couldn't just turn the comm channel on and demand the rebellion to send help, because the Empire would surely arrive instead. No, she needed to find just the right channel, then smash in her codes and after reporting her situation she had to smash the whole thing - preferably the whole TIE-fighter - into pieces. Burning it in the atmosphere - or just stealing like the last one - would be preferable, however right now it looked like the fighter was going to be simply shot down.
Her fingers were shaky, sudden turns of the TIE weren't helping either.
The first time her finger slipped. When Sabine tried to enter the codes for the second time, she was forced to use both hands just to make a sudden turn, because her tail tried to shot her down really hard.
"Ugh, damn it!" Sabine licked her lips as she pulled her TIE up higher, trying to gain a distance ver two others ships. "I do hope you have as much fuel as you're telling me," she muttered to the TIE.
Otherwise she was about to fell down from the skye without stormtroopers helping out.
Sabine shook her hand, hoping that the sudden, sharp movement would be enough to get rid of the shaking and tried to input the codes once again.
"Spectre Five to Aura, Spectre Five to Aura!" she said hurielly, almost tripping on words. "I require an assistance! Do you copy?"
The Aura was a pretty old, heavily modified ship. It looked more like it was created by smashing a military class ship and a transport fregate, but it was surprisingly fast and it also packed a nice punch if needed. Nothing like a Star Destroyer, not even close, but it was still a good ship. The closest one to Sabine's current location, also.
"Aura to Spectre Five," the speakers rumbled and Sabine breathed out in relief. "We copy. Is the line secure?"
"As good as i could make it," Sabine admitted. With doing everything with one hand and in haste, she should be pretty proud of herself, but some mistakes were definitely made.
"Copy that. Spectre Five, what's your status?"
"Escaping in a damged TIE-fighter, no weapons, two TIEs on my tail," she reported quickly. "Doubt that they'll send more, but there's always a possibility."
There was always a chance that the Imperials would identify her and send some more people, or actually catch the transmission and send the cavarly. The two TIEs definitely were reporting to their superiors too, so the time window to get out of this jam before it all turns into a huge mess wasn't too big.
Still, it was a great feeling, knowing that someone was coming to get her.
Sabine shifted in her seat, for the first time daring to steal a second to find a comfortable position.
"Now come on, boys. Show me what you've got," she said with a smirk, squeezing the flight control columns.
They blasted at her and she pulled the TIE to the left, swirling between the red lights.
Sabine was flying low enough that she could see the blaster shots tearing the clouds apart and reflecting in the wavering thousands o water droplets. Her winds were caught up in the clouds too, dragging them around and criss-crossing the sky with while lines.
It was beautiful and the humongous metal carcass of spaceship lowering itself into the atmosphere with thunderous rumble was even more astonishing.
"Spectre Five, get out of the line of fire," an order came out throught the speakers.
sabine obediently manouvered her TIE away, flying around Aura.
The two troopers who were piloting the following TIEs quickly understood what their situation was and turned around.
"You won't believe how good it is to see you, Aura!" Sabine laughed out loud.
"Now that's the first time anyone said that about a zyggerian vessel."
"Zyggerian?" she asked. She knew the slavers a little bit too well than she wished for and the ship definitely did not fit with the usual aesthetics.
"They've crashed."
"Oh."
"We crashed next to it," the person on the communicator continued. "After tearing down everything that looked stupid we smashed into it stuff from out ship that was still usable. Well, the Sluissi did, they really do work miracles-"
Before the story continued, it was cut by another aboard Aura
"Nuherre, radio-silence. Do you know what it is?"
"I uh... Yes sir!"
Sabine chuckled. It seemed that not only the Ghost was a pretty chaotic when it came to inner regulations.
"Spectre Five to Aura," She said, after making sure that her voice wouldn't break into a fit of laughter. "Permission to dock?"
"Permission granted. See you onboard. Aura out."
"Aknowledged."
Sabine carefully flew her stolen TIE into the hangar bay, eyes now wary or any detail that could point the origin of the ship. Or rather what was left of the original ship. If the story about crashing one ship next to another was true, then it definitely happened more than once, because woah, there was pretty much everything one could imagine somehow put together and not exploding.
Well, Sluissi were supposed to be masters when it came to tinkering, hrough Sabine knew one who was a bounty hunter and specialized in everything but machines. He was a viscious thing, one of the memories from time Sabine preferred to leave forgotten.
As soon as she stepped out of the fighter, two members of the Aurora crew started to take it apart, scavenging everything that might come useful. Considering how fast they were working, it wasn't the fist TIE-fighter they were taking apart in this manner either.
Sabine hummed. The Aura was the closest ship to the place where she was supposed to find the surgeon and they agreed to help; they just wanted the guy to stay onboard Aura and teach whoever wanted to learn. They sure did have enough space to turn a chunk of it into a school.
The Commander of the Aura was a huge Trianii, through Sabine still had no idea if that person was male or female; the monstrous armour seemed to never leave Captains Duerre's body and the rich, striped fur covering it was making recognition even more dificult. That and the fact that Trianii were keeping their tails as far away from the Galactic Empire and the Empire seemed to share the sentiment. If every member of that race looked like they are going to literally chew out your arm if offended, then Sabine fully understood the reasoning behind that decision.
"It appears that your mission wasn't succesful," Duerre's voice was as rough and their appearance, but at the same time the words were spoken softly.
"Sadly, yes," Sabine sighed. "I really hoped this time we will get something."
"We all did," Duerre nodded. "We can talk later. You seem to be in need of medical attention."
“I’ll definitely walk myself there,” Sabine promised. “Then I’m out of your head.”
“There’s no need for such hurry,” Duerre said. “You can rest if you feel the need to.”
“I’m fine,” Sabine smiled. “Besides, maybe Zeb managed to find something through his contacts.”
And she really, really wanted to leave this ship as fast as possible. It definitely was huge and exploring it would be quite an adventure, not to mention there definitely would be many things to learn, useful things. However there was one thing, that made Sabine feel the need to flee. Food.
The crew of the Aura was put together with beings of many different races, which made feeding them all difficult; everyone needed something different. Unless one wanted to know what happened if you serve a salad to a Togruta, which usually didn’t end up pretty to anyone involved.
Food, fresh food especially, was expensive, especially in space and Aura was one of the less stationary Rebel ships, especially compared to Ghost which hanged out around Lothal oly up until recently. The only choice left for Aura when it came to food were the nutrition pastes and powders, all of them capable to feed efficiently most of the space-travelling species, but they were also tasting like cardboard mixed with something really, really nasty. Even the colors were unappealing, whiteish or brownish unless it was bright yellow.
Running away as fast as possible was really the only viable option.
The medbay of the Aura at first sight looked more like a library than anything else. There were thin, shiny sheets of holorecords all over the place. They were covering the desk, leaving just a little bit of space for a worn out moltar and a high pile of flimsi.
Sabine could spot more of the datapads in the cabinet, stuffed between jars and boxes with medicine.
"Um, hello?" Sabine slowly made her first step into this lair of madness. Was she supposed to put her hand on her own?
She already knew that the Aura crew was missing a professional medic as much as her own did. Heck, if they had a doctor onboard there would be no need to search for one planetside.
Between the cabinets there were doors leading further inside. They were old, bended on the side and definitely were not the original part of the medbay. Sabine would be mildly curious for what happened to the previous doors if not for the fact that the adrenaline finally left her system. She felt drained and her wounded hand hurt. Her fingers felt way too cold and stiff, the regular jabs of pain were annoying and she was afraid she lost too much blood.
Sabine was about to start searching through the cabinets for what she needed, when she heard shufling behind the doors. She instantly moved away from the cabinet, the need to not be seen scooping around was much stronger than any sense of reason.
Soon, the doors opened surprisingly quietly considering the state they were in.
Sabine looked with curiosity at the woman that walked in and just dumped even move files to the already high tower of flimsi on the desk. She was wearing her black hair in a really tight bun, the right side of her face was dotted with beauty spots and she had probably the prettiest make-up Sabine ever saw.
"Hi," she said, smiling. She looked Sabine up and down. "I'm Vella and you look like you need help. Please, sit down... uh."
There clearly wasn't any place to sit down The single chair was as much stocked with stuff as the rest of the place. The woman blushed and hurrielly freed the seat, putting all of the things on the floor with a surprising amoung of care.
"Sorry about that," Vella said. "It looks like a mess, but it's not, I have everything sorted by species, so if I don't know something I would know where to look!"
"No worries, it looks the same when I'm doing maintenance to my stuff." Sabine chuckled back. Maybe it was the blood loss, or the exhaution, but she coudn't quite stop herself from asking a question. "Does it take a lot of time to do your eyes like that?"
"Certainly less than sleeping," Vella answerred immediatelly, while her glowed hands were already tearing Sabine's sleeve.
"There are so many people returning wounded?" Sabine asked, furrowing her brow.
"More like I need to learn how to help them in the first place," the woman grimaced. "I'm pretty much fresh out of the school and these are all more or less controlled by the Empire."
"Uh-huh," Sabine muttered, remembering all too well her own experiences.
"The Empire is just fine with us learning about the signs of diseases that are transmittable to humans, but beyond that..." Vella shrugged.
"I know something about that," Sabine nodded with a heavy sigh. Ezra, when he returned from his cover up as an imperial cadet told a very similar story, about how there were kids of other species and then they resigned, one after another until only humans remained. She hoped that the young Jedi didn't realize yet that sometimes the resignation was a synonymous with an unmarked grave.
"Well," Sabine forced herself to look for the bright side. "You sure have a lot of datapads. Are they all about medicine, or?"
"Mostly," Vella nodded, carefully cleaning the wound on Sabine's forearm. "A teacher of mine was an idealist and used every chance he had to give us additional informations."
Sabine grimaced as the dissenfecant touched her skin. "It didn't end well, did it?"
"A true nightmare," Vella admitted. "I've managed to take as much as I could while the troopers were swarming the place and arresting the teachers. Then I ran."
"It was the right choice."
"I know," Vella nodded. "Alright, all wrapped up!"
"Thank you," Sabine smiled.
"No problem, just try to not strain it too much."
Sabine left the medbay. Vella was a very nice person - and damn, Sabine wanted to bug her for all of the make=up tricks - but she was also ridiculously busy, so it was better to just leave her alone.
Besides, she felt bad right now and not because her hand still hurt. The galaxy, it was becoming more and more cold and terrifying.
"When it all became so shitty?"
And how nobody realized it, how nobody reacted while it was still time, how, how how. They were still in the Outer Rim, it wasn't supposed to be so bad out here.
Xxx
Sabine remembered her shameful reaction when she first saw the Outsider onboard the Ghost and grimaced with a distaste. This memory would stick with her for awhile. It definitely wasn’t going away now, since she was currently onboard the Phantom, flying back home to deliver the bad news.
With a heavy sigh, Sabine surrendered herself to analyzing what had happened not so long ago. Learn from your mistakes, when you’re still alive to do so, someone said o her, once. It was a good advice.
She leaned against the doors of the Ghost cockpit as soon as they closed behind her, feeling the cold sweat travelling down her hairline. He hears was ramming against her ribcage like it suddenly decided that it was time to get out of the prison of her chest.
She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on breathing, but it was pointless. The world was swirling around her, scary stories from childhood suddenly becoming a living, breathing part of her reality.
It was hard to not remember the stories for how vivid they were - the Mandalorians were very good at telling stories, especially if these stories were part of their history.
And that person... that person was on the Ghost and Sabine was sooner going to blow the ship up then let him do the same thing to her crew that he did to the Death Watch.
It was him, it had to be. He fitted the way the Outsider was described to a T. A beast wearing a body of Zabrak with skin blood red and covered in dark patters, a warrior with a red lightsaber that wasn't a Jedi, a man that Pre Vizsla found and wrongfully trusted.
The Outsider murdered Pre Vizsla, took the Darksaber and declared himself the new ruler of Mandalor. Then the ancient blade disappeared while the whole system was took over by the soon to be Empire and because of that Sabine's life was fucked.
All because of the Outsider and now he was here again and she needed to protect her family...
Sabine took a deep breath. Now she was going home and running away was not going to happen for the second time. Now she knew he was there, now she could psyche herself, now she would be ready.
Panicking wasn't going to help anyone. She needed to move carefully, very carefully, because that was an enemy she never faced before. However how could one plan to deal with a situation like that, with someone like that?
By all means, Sabine was actually surprised that everyone onboard the Ghost was still alive and healthy (relatively, but still).
“He’s mostly… not around,” Zeb said, when Sabine asked him about Maul, his face as troubled as she felt. “Chopper is having sensors on him, but the guy is either going through all the accessible information from the past thirty years or hanging out in the workshop.”
Sabine furrowed her brow. The workshop was pretty much an improvised one, a small chunk of ship that she and Zeb borrowed so they could have space for weapons maintenance and the explosives and the other stuff like that. It felt like the Zabrak was invading their personal space. However this wasn’t what caught Sabine’s attention.
“What about Ezra?” she asked. Because there definitely was something up, there has to be.
“He’s leaving the boy alone, for now at least,” Zeb grunted. “I’m not sure if this is a part of some plan or what but…”
“I don’t like it either,” Sabine agreed. Was he biding his time? Was he waiting for them to stop being so suspicious of him, for the moment when they would stop seeing him as a potential danger?
“You want to talk with him,” Zeb pointed out, clearly as unhappy about that as he was about everything else that had anything to do with Maul.
Sabine took a deep breath.
“I need to clear some things out,” she explained. “It’s personal and something I really need to know.”
“And you think he has the answer,” Zeb finished for her with a sigh.
“Or a version of it,” Sabine said with a shrug. “I don’t think he has a reason to lie, but, well…”
But there was no reason at all to trust whatever the – supposedly – former Darth Maul will tell her, if he even decided to talk to her in the first place. He could lie, because he had a plan of some sort, out of spite or just for the kicks of it.
Sabine didn’t need to believe in any o it. At the same time she needed to face the Boogeyman and to hear his version of the story.
Zeb didn’t tell her to be careful, he didn’t need to and not because there was hardly a way to get more safe than wearing a Mandalorian body armor on a daily basis. They knew each other well enough to not need words for things like that.
Sabine straightened her back, raised up her chin and marched forward, heading towards the to the cargo bay that was remade into Ghost's own mechanical workshop. It was mostly empty room with walls made of metal and without any windows, with a ladder and a movable ramp for heavier stuff leading outside... and it was currently occupied, just as she hoped – feared? – it to be.
The Outsider was there, standing – this time he had both legs, did he built himself one already? - by the working table. A chair was standing next to him the seat filled with cluster of tools and scrap. He held something in his hands.
Sabine considered walking away, but the experience with Kanan and Ezra clearly proved that the Outsider was already aware of her presence. Sabine was a Mandalorian. Mandalorians do not run away.
"This looks like the droids one of the Inquisitors was using," Sabine said instead.
"It serves the same purpose," he agreed in soft voice, critically looking over the small, flying machine, before turning towards her. "Vizsla."
"You make recognizing my clan name looks easy," she said, waiting for a reaction of some sort, eyes on both the Outsider and that little droid of his. It was made of scrap and it looked like it, appearing to be more of a cheap toy put together for no reason other than a whim, but since it was made by someone like him, there was clearly a reason behind such shabby appearance. It was definitely less creepy than the spidery, sleek and black droids following the Seventh Sister.
"You are wearing it," he pointed out. The corner of his lips tipped upwards, as if he was baffled by the question.
Sabine felt a pang of annoyance. It wasn't like many people other than Mandalorians were able to recognize all the subtle hits hidden in shape of armor and symbols covering it.
"For an outsider, you know a lot."
"I've spend some time among your people, Vizsla."
"I know," she closed her fists. She highly doubted that she had any chance against the Outsider. She heard how easily he dealt with the Inquisitors they were struggling so hard against. Yet, she couldn't quite stop herself either. "I've heard of you. An Outsider, found by Pre Vizsla, the one who later on murdered him."
This time Sabine got an reaction.
The Outsider's eyebrows jumped up high in surprise, yellow eyes widened.
"Murdered?" he asked.
"You have beheaded him with his own saber."
"Well, it appear you have only a piece of story instead of the entire thing," the Outsider chuckled and shook his head, as if he heard a joke.
"What do you mean?" Sabine furrowed her brow. There was no reason to lie and put a blame on the Outsider if someone other held the blade that cut down Pre Vizsla.
"I have challenged him to duel," the Outsider answered with a small smile. "He accepted. I won."
Sabine blinked. "You're an outsider!"
"I admit, it was a bit of a gamble on my side," the Zabrak said. "He could just order his people to gun me down instead and it would be still perfectly acceptable. He made a different choice."
"Then why they didn't...?"
"I assume you were born to the group of Death Watch that decided honorable duel or not, an outsider doesn't have a place among Mandalorians."
Or rather, they didn't accept him as the Mand’alor. Sabine understood the sentiment, she would be opposed to him holding the Darksaber too. It was so much more than just a weapon or a status symbol. Something so much bigger and important it almost felt like a blasphemy for an Outsider to even touch it.
Still...
"Why have they lied?"
"Lied?" the Outsider snorted, as I she just told a good joke instead of asking a pretty important question. "There are many ways to tell the truth, Vizsla. The truth itself has many faces."
If he wanted to be cryptic, he wasn't trying really hard, Sabine decided. Compared to whatever was coming out of Kanan’s mouth, this was easy to decipher.
"The weapon," she said instead. "How it looked like?"
"The Darksaber?" he asked.
Sabine nodded.
Oddly enough, his expression softened, as i he was reminiscing something pleasant. It was a surprisingly... Mandalorian thing to do.
"The Jedi were describing it as a blade made of pure darkness, but that's just wrong," he started. "It was black, but not entirely. More like a chunk of the void itself, torn from the sky and forged into a weapon, with stars still shining along the blade.”
It was a … nice description, surprisingly sappy considering who was speaking, but it fit what Sabine knew about the ancient lightsaber.
“Where it is now?”
“I’m afraid I know as much as you do,” The Outsider gave her a humorless smirk.
Sabine blinked. That wasn’t making sense.
“You had it. I don’t think anyone would put it away or on display…” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t get it. How you managed to suddenly not have it?”
The smirk deepened and turned into something unpleasant and dark and there was a glint of something in his eyes Sabine was unable to identify. She didn’t even want to know what it was. It was scary, that’s enough.
“I’m afraid I was… somewhat preoccupied with the man, now you know him as the Emperor, voicing his displeasure with me trying to fight back.”
Sabine opened her mouth, about to repeat his words to make at least some sense of this mad rambling. Her brain made the just right connection in the very moment she was about to talk and she choked on her own words, instead making a stranded, strange noise.
“But you wouldn’t…” she started, feeling like she was suddenly underwater, fighting for every breath. “Why…he’s just-!”
The Outsider, the man who once was called Darth Maul, the man who terrorized the Shadow Collective into existence, who did so many big and terrifying things, was standing in front of her, patiently waiting, with a mild interest on his face.
Someone like him wouldn’t just bend his back in front of a Republic Chancellor. Even if the guy brought the entire Clone Army with him, it wouldn’t be enough. It never would. Unless…
“The Emperor is a Sith,” Sabine spat out her conclusion.
It was… making sense in a perfectly terrifying way, connecting all the dots, explaining so many things at once. Why the Jedi suddenly became the enemy of the Republic, why they were hunted down like ferocious animals, why the Inquisitors existed, why, why, why…
Maul furrowed his brow, making a sudden realization of his own.
“What,” he asked. “You didn’t know?”