Chapter Text
One of these days, they'll go on a supply run that didn't end with them getting shot at.
But not today.
No.
Today, they had to endure another rendition of double-crossing smugglers, lousy but unfortunately effective ambushes, and blaster-fire from all sides.
And the running. Ever the running.
They had come on foot because they were supposed to leave with a load-speeder full of supply crates full of… whatever was in these unmarked crates they constantly put their lives on the line to procure and deliver to the Rebellion, only for them to be shunted around to who-knows-where. Instead of crates, the load-speeder had been hoarding a small band of mercenaries—armed mercenaries promised a handsome reward for every rebel they either caught or killed.
(Sabine thought she glimpsed the sunset insignia on their vests and that explained too much. The Black Sun wasn't majorly political, but Imperial bounties often helped supplement their quotas.)
Sato assigned her, Kanan, and Zeb to this mission and Hera, Ezra, Chopper and their newest, still-somewhat-unofficial-member Rex to a separate mission. Because they had the supply run, they had the Ghost while the others were away with the Phantom.
That wasn't a problem: Hera could lay cover-fire and pick them all up with a child's speeder-bike; she easily could've come swooping in for their rescue in the excursion craft… had they been on the same planet.
Even if she were, it wouldn't have helped; unless she was physically within a mile or two of their location, they couldn't contact her for a pick-up.
They couldn't contact anyone for help.
"Kriffing Daiyu," Kanan muttered, hotly, as they bolted down an unavoidably tight street. In one hand, he wielded his blaster, in the other, he futilely clicked his comm-link, never managing to elicit the little two-tone chime which confirmed a connected channel.
Beneath her helmet, Sabine's eyebrows rose. Aside from the occasional "karabast," Kanan didn't really use off-colour language. She didn't like what that said about their situation.
"What kind of planet doesn't let you call your friends?" Zeb asked, his tone frustrated and adrenaline roughened.
Sabine had no quip to answer with. Her heart was pounding hard to keep her running and thinking—observing, calculating, deciding, everything now, no time to debate, no time to think about the Black Sun. It was no easy thing navigating the cramped streets with seven or more mercenaries hot on their heels, constantly loosing blaster shots that just barely missed them.
They couldn't run home to the Ghost—not directly. The straight route would pull them through the markets and she already knew Kanan would never go for that, not when it put innocents in harm's way.
So it was duck down this alley, cut through this strange side-street, volt over this fence and around that corner. Find people? Go the other way. Every move, every action as sharp as an instinct, as pointless as a reaction.
They weaved their way through Daiyu's spine, leaving a trail of blackened starbursts where the mercenaries' blaster bolts missed them and struck buildings instead (but better bricks and duracrete than innocent bystanders).
They came to a forked road and split up without a command to do so ever being issued—they were the soldiers of the crew; they knew what to do.
Only one went after Sabine. She was the smallest, they may have guessed or known she was the youngest, but these idiots just revealed their naïveté.
In the privacy of her helmet, Sabine smirked.
He didn't know it but she was leading this chase now.
The next alleyway to come up, she ducked in. It was short and a dead-end, but little it mattered. She darted in, spun around, and in the very second her pursuer appeared, she greeted him with two stun bolts.
Holstering her blasters, she walked over to the unconscious heap. One swift kick sent his blaster skittering across the rain-damp stones. Now up close, she could confirm the Black Sun insignia as well as find the markings indicating his rank.
She scoffed. "Guess you're about to be demoted," she told him as she quickly rifled through his pockets. "But you deserve it. You underestimated a Mandalorian, di'kut; you're lucky I'm nice enough to let you live with that embarrassment."
No puck. No fob. Not even a chit.
That was good.
That meant the Black Sun hadn't officially issued or taken their bounties. These guys were just freelancing, probably hoping to score a quick pay-out and upgrade their reputations.
In an inside pocket of his vest, she found a pouch of credits. Seeing as their supply run had been nothing but a ruse, it only seemed fair she take some compensation.
"You probably won't appreciate this irony, but I sure do," she told him as she secured the credits in one of the pouches clipped to her belt.
And so she left, glancing one last time at the mercenary's blaster. It was heavily modified—the kind of tweaks and additions you could only get away with if you worked for an underworld staple like the Black Sun. Her hand twitched to take it—for parts, if nothing else—but one of those parts could very well be a tracker. Best to leave it.
Besides.
She didn't do trophies anymore.
She was halfway down the street, on her way to track down the others when her comm bleeped.
"Come in, Spectre 5," Kanan requested (and if Sabine had to describe his tone, she’d say he sounded desperate, urgent).
"All done on my end," she reported, breezily. "How're you boys doing?"
"We shook the tails and we're heading back to the Ghost."
"Copy. Meet you there."
She made it back to the Ghost without delay. Zeb closed the hatch behind her as she hurried up to the cockpit. Kanan was in Hera's seat so Sabine took the co-pilot's position. Fluidly, they worked in tandem, getting the faithful old ship up into the air and headed off "kriffing Daiyu."
They didn't talk.
There was something wound tight and uncomfortable in the air; it remained even as they leapt to the safety of hyperspace. Sabine didn't know how to read it: frustration over a fruitless mission? Feeling of failure because they didn't fight their attackers head-on? Could be both, could be neither, all she knew was that Kanan usually had more to say after missions, especially missions gone-wrong.
He always had a joke, a quip, a snide remark. Something to take the edge off, something to help them all shrug it off and move on, something to say "that's just life, don't worry; we'll get 'em next time."
Sabine took her helmet off. "It's not your fault," she reminded him because some had to say it. "You didn't pick this mission."
He closed his eyes and his shoulders dropped a notch without really losing their rigidity. "I know," was all he said but she could guess what else he wanted to say.
Hera was all for joining the Rebellion but Kanan still had his reservations, and mishaps such as these didn't help his trust issues.
(They certainly weren't helping Sabine's misgivings…)
He sighed and that was his final word on the matter.
He knew Sabine, of everyone on the crew, agreed with him the most but there was little they could do beyond bat complaints and gripes back and forth, wind up their irritation until they were annoyed, coiled on hair triggers, and just plain unpleasant to be around. They had thrown their lot into this; they had to see it through, and it was far easier to see something through when you weren't constantly complaining in a battle already lost.
"I'll call Hera," he said, turning his seat around. Maybe we can rendezvous with them and—agh!"
He made to stand up from the chair but his knees didn't even straighten before he dropped back down to sitting, the mechanisms in the chair creaking harshly at the sudden jolt. Sharply, he bent over, arms snapping around his stomach, his face screwing up tight with pain.
"Kanan! What's wrong?" Sabine kicked the floor to swing her seat to face him, quickly depositing her helmet on the empty seat behind the co-pilot.
For a moment, it seemed he hadn't heard her. He hunched in tighter over himself and then, with effort, pried his hand off his side to examine it and the source of his apparent pain. His fingertips and his palm came away smeared with blood matching the stain on his shirt blooming from a…
A blaster wound.
A nasty blaster wound.
"They must've got me," he commented dumbly as he switched his gaze between his hand and the rather ragged hole in his abdomen.
Sabine stared at him. "How did you not notice?" she asked, only half expecting an answer. The only way not to feel a bolt from a blaster as modified as the ones those hunters toted was to take a fatal shot.
"I did notice, I just didn't think it was so bad."
"Well. It's bad."
"Yeah. Figured. Probably—probably should deal with it." Like he was just putting a lid back on a jar, he returned his hand to pressing on the wound, hissing on contact.
"Hang on." Springing to her feet, Sabine bolted to the other side of the cockpit where they kept a medkit. As she returned to his side, the doors split open and Zeb appeared.
"Well, that was fun," he was saying as he lumbered in. Sabine spared a glance to him and caught the exact moment he saw Kanan's predicament. His casual smile morphed straight into concern, his ears pointing up in alarm. "You alright, mate?"
"Yeah, s'just allergies," Kanan quipped.
Sabine rolled her eyes.
He was trying to play it cool, trying to make it seem like no big deal, but he couldn't even get through the minor attempt at humour with a steady voice.
Deftly, she plucked the medical foam injector from the kit: a bright orange device that didn't look so different from her spray-painter.
"Hold still," she instructed, flicking the cap off the nozzle.
He gave a small nod and, fighting the instinct to curl around and protect the hurt, he pulled his arms apart, one blood-stained hand gripping the edge of the chair while the other attempted to assist, holding the singed fabric of his shirt away from the wound.
He shut his eyes and clenched his jaw and that was all the bracing Sabine allowed before she flicked the catch and pulled the trigger. The gun-like device emitted a slurred hiss as it filled the wound with a billowing white foam—such a stark contrast to the dark red. Involuntarily, he twitched but managed to hold himself from flinching too dramatically.
The foam—designed to clean and pack a wound—expanded and hardened, but sluggishly; Sabine watched a worrying rivulet of blood continue trickling out—slowed but not totally stopped, painting the dark green of his shirt almost black.
Kanan grunted but bit down any further exclamation. He turned his head away as if not watching, not seeing it could make it hurt less. After a moment, he nodded in response to nothing but his own internal thoughts. "Okay," he panted out. "It's okay. I'm okay."
"No, you're not," Zeb told him, point blank. He came to stand just behind Sabine, giving her room to work but remaining close to render assistance if called upon.
"Sure I am," Kanan insisted. "See? Wound's closed."
"It's not a cure, it's just a stop-gap," Sabine said, rifling through the kit for a pack of wet wipes. She plucked out two, giving one to Kanan to clean his hands and one to clean around the wound. "And I'm not even sure it's gonna work as that for long: this stuff expired when I was a baby."
The medkit—and nearly all the medical supplies they had on board the Ghost—came from Clone Wars surplus, pinched from an abandoned medical station. The frigid conditions preserved much but these things weren't designed to last forever. Brand new, the foam would've expanded instantly; now, it just barely filled the wound, obstructing rather than properly staunching the bleeding. Sabine doubted the healing agents within the foam were even still active—she may as well just have packed it with regular gauze.
"The foam will break down in less than two hours," she continued, taking out a wad of gauze, a roll of bandage and a med-scanner.
"Which won't be a problem," Zeb said like her statement was unfinished and he was picking it up for her, his eyes shifting nervously between her and Kanan, "because we'll have you in a bacta tank by then, right?"
Kanan grimaced as he wadded up the wipes (white to begin with, his blood had quickly, almost completely dyed them red). After a belated moment of consideration, he peeled his gloves off and let them just slip to the floor.
"Zeb," Sabine said, her tone grave. "It's eight hours to Garel."
His yellow eyes blew wide. "Well, then—then we go back to Daiyu."
"You know we can't. The hunters, remember? A bacta tank will make him and us way too easy a target for them."
"It's not like Garel's the only place with a med-centre! We'll just stop somewhere else."
"We can't stop anywhere in this system," Kanan said, evenly, like he wasn't the subject of this discussion.
As Sabine began dressing the wound, he leaned his head back on the rest and shut his eyes again, less tightly than before. She could see the toll of the blood-loss creeping over him; she could even hear it in his thinned voice—he must've taken this hit almost as soon as they split up, adrenaline and exertion helping him ignore it while causing his blood to pump harder and escape too readily.
"And I can't go to a med-centre anyway. We got lucky on Kaller," he added in a mumble.
A ball of ice grew in Sabine's stomach.
The incident on Kaller was almost a year behind them now. It was also a supply run gone wrong, also an ambush, but rather than get shot, Kanan had been stabbed in the back—literally. They got him to an unregistered clinic—the kind willing to treat anyone, regardless of their background or ability to pay—and the last stroke of luck was that they had a spare bacta tank.
(Last stroke of luck because he didn’t even get a chance to stay in the bacta half as long as he needed before Imps caught them.)
"He's right," Sabine said, the words tasting sour. She finished hiding the wound under the gauze and securing it with a band of bandage (at least those things didn’t expire). "A med-centre will identify him, and even if they somehow don't, they'll find out he's a Jedi the second they test his blood."
"We'll have Inquisitors on us in minutes," Kanan concluded, softly.
Zeb looked how Sabine felt. His ears slanted down flat, his eyes flicked frantically between them and nothing as his mind raced, his mouth hanging open, waiting, hoping, desperate for an answer to come to him.
She pulled out the med-scanner, ordered a scan and held it over the wound. The chunky device bleeped as it concluded, it’s screen blinking an anxious orange as it listed his problems and urged them to seek immediate care.
Sabine shook her head. "Well, good news is: the bolt missed your liver—just."
She held her breath for a quip but got only a twitch of a smile.
With obvious effort, he turned his seat to face the viewport again. He planted his forearm on the dash and leaned forward, letting it take his weight, relieve some of the pressure on his abdomen. Hyperspace’s swirling blue painted his skin, hiding his pallor but highlighting the specks of sweat on his forehead.
"It's just a wound," he said after a while, taking a deep breath carefully and straightening just his shoulders. "And we know how to treat wounds. We'll treat it best we can with what we have, I'll rest, and when we do meet up with the others, we can figure out what else to do together. Sound good?"
Sabine raised an eyebrow. "Are you actually going to rest?"
"I think I can afford a nap."