Chapter Text
"Rebellious"
Part IV: Pretty Wicked Things
Since Kanan and Ezra came back from the disaster that was the whole Malachor thing, she and Hera were desperately putting their resources and contact lists together, trying to find help for Kanan. It was supposed to be easy. Medical resources should be available to anyone who needed them and because of the long, bloody Clone Wars people wearing prosthetics were a common sight. Yet there they were, unable to find anything.
The doctors Rex knew personally were either missing or arrested and relocated somewhere. Some of the contacts were even worse - they learned about a surgeon, who supposedly had access to advanced medical resources, only to almost end up arrested by the Empire troops, because the fucker was working for them. He wasn't the only one either.
The Empire was doing a truly amazing job at slowly but surely cutting off everyone that wasn't standing with them from things everyone deserved. To get anything bigger than a simple flu healed, a lot of bureaucracy was involved, dozens of different forms to fill and ID checks. Cheating through the whole thing was simply impossible and a risk to involve an outsider way too great, even if all they needed were just the eyes and not the surgeon.
The stupid self-sacrificing man actually told them to stop, that they needed to help everyone rather than to concentrate on one man and Sabine really wanted to punch him for that. Zeb knew the tell-tale motion of fists closing and then opening again too well. He also was familiar with the girl enough to know that she will not hit Kanan. She would probably find a lonely corner to punch a wall, or drag him or Ezra into a sparring match, but she would not raise a hand against someone who was simply acting like a fool. At this moment, Zeb shared the sentiment. He too, wanted to punch something, to feel hard surface against his knuckles, to hear a well satisfying noise of his fist smashing into an imperial helmet… sadly, he couldn’t have it. And smacking around Ezra’s collection wasn’t doing a thing for him. Tried that one already, ended up with a really annoyed Jedi Padawan. Wasn’t worth it.
Zeb would gladly mop in the cornflakes for the whole day, if not for Sabine entering the room in hurry, slightly pale and with the oddest expression on her face. He remembered what she was doing a few moments ago, where she was these few moments ago and he honestly didn’t like the tale her disturbed expression was telling him.
"Something happened?" he asked, immediately straightening his back, hundreds of suspicious thoughts blossoming in his mind in an instant. "What did he do?"
Zeb was ready to do... something. Clearly, he has no clue what, but sitting around while his friends were stressed so much. Even if there wasn't much he could actually do against a Force user, he was still going to at least try.
"He just said something," Sabine made a gesture that was supposed to calm Zeb down, but it only unnerved him further. The Sith, they were supposed to be masters in manipulation and Darth Maul was definitely not sleeping during that lesson, considering what Zeb knew about his history. And the little bits and pieces of history the Mandalorians were not talking about with outsiders, they mere existence proving he was right to be suspicious.
"What?" he asked again.
"Should I go get Kanan?"
"I..." Sabine licked her lips, pausing for a short moment. "I think you should."
"Okay," Zeb carefully nodded.
He didn't want to leave the girl alone, he had no idea what was going on and just now he remembered that Kanan was blind and how he could forget that in the first place at all? After the return, the crew moved stuff around, as discretely as they could, to make clear passages through the ship, so the Jedi could move around with more ease. They ended up bumping into everything instead, not used to things standing in unusual places, but the bruises were worth it; Kanan was the only one who didn’t have any. Still, Kanan was probably the only one who would know what to do, whatever was going on.
"You fine with waiting for a moment?" Zeb asked. He could use the radio, but was unsure if letting their guest know about the emergency meeting was a good idea, so using his feet seemed to be safer.
Sabine just nodded. She still was chewing on her lip and was pale, her brow furrowed in deep thought.
With a sigh and the stomach twisting into a nervous knot, Zeb wandered out to look for other crew members. For the first time in his life, he was glad than the Ghost wasn’t all that big and that it was so easy to bump into someone after just turning a corner.
Chopper found himself. He was probably listening on the conversation - conversations? - because he was collecting blackmail material or something equally ridiculous and stumbled into this situation. With a small whistle, the droid followed Zeb.
"So, we're missing just two, huh?" Zeb asked.
Chopper answered with a questioning beep.
Zeb decided to not comment on that, instead he headed out straight for the cockpit.
As he expected, both Kanan and Hera were there, just sitting. Not talking, not making plans, just sitting, Kanan with a calm face, with white bandages contrasting vividly with his skin, while Hera was stealing worried gazed at him.
"Something is up?”
“Afraid so,” Zeb nodded. “Sabine wants to talk with you guys.”
Kanan tilted his head to the side, forehead slightly furrowed over the white bandages that covered the upper side of his face. “This sound urgent.”
“I honestly have no idea,” Zeb admitted.
They followed him anyway. In the hindsight, it was quite stupid, they could radio the girl to come to the cockpit since everyone else was already crowded in there, but the thought hit Zeb only after they were halfway through the ship. Sabine was waiting in the exact same spot where Zeb left her, not even sitting down by the table, on the narrow sofa they dragged at some point in, to have an illusion of a dining area. The bowl with half-eaten flakes was still there, through what was inside by now surely turned into an unappetizing, lukewarm mush.
"So, what's this is about?" Hera asked, not letting the awkward silence to settle in. "Did something happen?"
"It was him, right?" Zeb quickly jumped to conclusions, narrowing his eyes and looking Sabine up and down.
"Did he do anything?" It was utterly terrifying to have someone like Maul onboard. While Zeb never left his home planet until it wasn't home anymore, he still heard stories. Didn't believe in them, until he saw what Kanan could do, what even a kid like Ezra could do. "Well, all the limbs are still attached and I'm not even lying in the pool of blood," Sabine rolled her eyes.
"So no. We just talked."
"Talked," Zed repeated after her. "And what was so unsettling with just talking that you needed to find us immediately?"
"Um, guys? Maybe we should not be all that suspicious about the guy who literally saved our lives two times just after meeting us?" Ezra said, casually crawling out of the vent next to the small kitchenette. "He could just walk away, you know. Nobody even knew he was there."
"Ezra..." Hera groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. The boy only gave an annoyed huff.
"What?" he asked, putting hands on his hips. "Now I'm the precious little kid that needs to be protected?"
"It's not that," Sabine said, grimacing slightly.
"Then what?" Ezra raised his eyebrows. "I'm biased or something?"
Zeb felt like rolling his eyes. The brat was too smart for his own good and while he definitely had sort spot for morally doubtful people like Hondo, he definitely was too smart to not notice that Maul was very obviously evil.
"Ezra, that's not it," Sabine said with a groan. She stole a split of second to glare at Zeb, because excluding the kid was his decision and she was pretty much taking the fall for it. "I asked Kanan here, because he's a Jedi and was a part of their order, and Zeb could possibly hear something and Hera is Cham Syndulla's daughter and the guy was a big shot before the Empire..."
"Could possibly hear something?" Zeb raised an eyebrow.
"What something?" And how everything was even connected for all of so different people to possibly hear about it before?
"This is something big enough to be dangerous," Kanan more stated than asked.
Sabine just nodded.
"Well, it's not like I can be in any more danger than I already am," Ezra said with a shrug. "So, if you want to protect me from knowing too much... cut it out, pretty please?"
Zeb sighed. As much as he wanted to reality to be different, the kid was right. Being force sensitive rebellion member - and whose fault was that anyway? - who already was on the list of many Imperials. The Inquisition, too. And if the Empire was happy to waste resources on search for Maul who was supposedly dead, then they sure would throw even much more at the hunt for a Jedi. Sabine probably came to the same conclusion. Her eyes softened with something that looked like a pity, then she turned towards Kanan.
"Let's get this over with," The Jedi decided. "What did he said?"
"That the Emperor is a Sith." There was a long moment of silence or maybe it was just Zeb who tuned everything else of, because his brain was using all of its power to wrap itself around these surreal words, trying to make some sense out of them.
"Yes, that was my reaction too," Sabine noted, eyes skimming over her friends.
"But what reason... why would he say something like that?" Hera was the first one to regain her ability to speech. "This is... big. This explains so much! Offering information of that sort just like that..."
There was a suspicion in her voice and Zeb shared the feeling. There was a price attached to everything these times and something like that should have a very ridiculous ticket attached to it. However dropping the bomb just like that, it was leaving the Zabrak in a difficult situation to extract whatever he wanted for it. Usually it was the other way around.
"I'm pretty sure he had no idea," Sabine said. "That we don't know. He even looked surprised."
"Well, he said that his ship crashed on Malachor," Ezra said. "And the Inquisitors seemed to be surprised to actually find him, even if they were send to look for him in the first place... so, it was quite some time ago."
"That might explain thing or two," Zeb muttered. Like the fact why the guy was lying low at all instead of immediately resurfacing and going on a happy murder-spree, like Zeb expected him to do. He was just hanging out down in the workshop, either going through all the school flimsi and datapads Ezra managed to collect on his undercover mission at the Imperial Academy on Lothal. Then there were those trashy little robots he started building just after he put together a leg to stand on. As far as Zeb could tell - through he never wandered close enough to fully examine any of the droids - they were mostly a flying cameras. It was making sense, the guy couldn't exactly show his face and the camera was the best next thing.
"You think he was telling the truth?" Hera asked furrowing her brow, gently putting hand on Kanans shoulder.
He was silent for a short moment.
"This definitely makes sense. And explains Vader and the Inquisitorium," he finally said. "If he wasn't one of them could easily take over. Or literally use him as a puppet to do their bidding."
"No, wait, how it does make sense?" Sabine shook her head. "You guys, I mean, Jedi and the Sith and whatever the old man in the hangar decided he is, can feel each other, right? In the Force, however that's working. So why the Jedi didn't notice the guy before they even saw him?"
"I have the same question," Hera nodded.
"I..." Ezra furrowed his brow. "I don't think they could."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, on the Phantom I could pretty much poke Maul," Ezra said, jabbing air in front of him as if he was trying to demonstrate. "But in the Force? Nope, like he wasn't there at all. It was so weird!"
"Kid, you're still a novice to the whole thing," Zeb pointed out. This whole thing was surreal enough without this whole spiritual thing he barely could wrap his mind around. "Kanan?"
"He's telling the truth," the man said, rubbing at the edge of his bandages. Hera smacked his hand away, hissing the obvious warnings about how upsetting the wounds was a bad thing at him. "I couldn't tell Maul was there," Kanan continued as if nothing happened. "Unless he let himself be heard."
"He let himself..." Zeb shook his head, because they were talking about the guy who was walking on metal legs on a metal surface, but decided to just let that one go. Force users were all stuffed up their ears with abilities to do stuff that appeared to be impossible, so why he was even surprised at this point. Instead, he asked a different question.
"With all due respect, because I know how well you can do your thing at all..."
"You are certain that the Masters of the Jedi would be able to beat the odds," Kanan nodded. "We wanted to believe that nothing was escaping their sight too. And yet..." he sighed. "The whole story might be unavailable to us and we probably will never learn the whole story."
"This is not the important part anyway. Not at this moment, not to us," Hera said with a sigh. "We have other things to worry about than the past."
She was trying very hard to not steal a gaze at Kanan, but Zeb noticed it anyway. She was worrying so much about him and the fact that he was their priority only up until the rebellion would need their crew more. It was going to happen, sooner than later. That was pretty much it, which wasn't making Zeb happy in the least. They still had no idea how to help Kanan, they had no clue where to look for said help and now they knew things that were painting quite the bright target mark on their backs. And there was still a guy of questionable morality on their ship, to top all of that. At least right now it didn't look like betraying them would lead to any nice things for Maul. Sabine was walking next to him, with thoughtful expression on her face. He was starting to dislike when she was thinking, it was leading to unpleasant places.
"Any ideas?" Zeb asked, not really expecting to hear an answer.
"I'm going to meet up with Ketsu," she said, voice a little bit absent, thoughts far, far away from here. "Soon, actually. The meeting was about some other thing and we planned it for awhile now..."
"Are you sure you up for that now?" Zeb asked. "You've just returned and the trip wasn't exactly a milk run."
"Oh, please!" she rolled her eyes. "How long do you know me? Since yesterday, or something?"
Zeb shook his head, chuckling. "Right. sorry about that, I know you're up to kick ass any time. I just..."
"Yeah, I know the feeling," Sabine nodded. "And sorry for jumping up your throat. I think I'm tired, but this thing? It's going to be just talking."
"If you say so."
"Anyhow, I want to run one thing by you, before doing anything."
"Me?" he asked. "Why not Kanan? Or Hera, since she's the actual captain of this ship?"
Sabine winced. "Considering I'm seriously thinking about poking at less... usual sources, I think you can imagine their reaction."
"Black Suns?" Zeb guessed. Indeed, he could imagine their reactions to that. While they were working for the scum like Vizago and some other lowlifes, there were still lines those two wouldn't cross. Zeb wasn't sure he would cross them either. The Black Suns, they were dangerous and merciless.
"Ketsu was working with them for some time," Sabine continued. "She joined the Rebellion, but she might still have some contacts inside, someone owning her a favor, stuff like that."
"Favor big enough to get stuff that big?"
"Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask," she said with a shrug. "Ketsu isn't stupid. Or suicidal. If this is too dangerous or something, she would just tell me to screw off."
"Then why do you need to run this stuff by me? It sounds like you already made your decision."
"There's one more thing," Sabine started. Zeb groaned, because connecting the dots wasn't all that difficult. "It was years ago, but he pretty much gathered every criminal he could find and them took over the Mandalore," Sabine said. "Not many people knows about this, since Death Watch has a certain thing against outsiders... but that happened. And he could know who to ask."
"If these people are still alive," Zeb grunted. Which was a bit doubtful, considering how short the average lifespan in organizations such as Dark Suns was. Still, it could be something and no matter how hard Zeb was thinking about it, he couldn't find a reason that would make selling them off a good thing for Maul.
"Do whatever you think is the best," Zeb finally said. "I don't like it much, but that's your decision."
It wasn’t telling the best things about him, the fact that instead of letting the girl go and do what she intended to do, he stuck around, with back glued to a wall, listening in on a conversation that wasn’t his.
“This is me,” Sabine said loudly, as soon as she entered the room. “Again. “
She was probably making herself feel better by acting like that. Zeb didn’t hold it against her, the guy she was talking to? Truly unnerving.
“It would be quite difficult to miss such a loudly entrance,” Maul said. As always, his voice was soft and loud enough it was hard to make out every word of this conversation.
“You’ve probably noticed, we still don’t have the set of cybernetic eyeballs to put in our Jedi,” Sabine continued, playing a role of someone she was not. Was it her bounty hunter persona, the one she was using while still flying across the galaxy with Ketsu Onyo? Or something she was using during her Imperial Academy days? Zeb wasn’t sure. He didn’t like it much.
“Are you trying how many times I'm going to repeat myself? But yes, that Jedi of yours is still blind,” the man snickered. “I assume, you have tried all the legal ways of obtaining the eyes?”
“And some of the less stellar options,” Sabine agreed. “I might have a friend in darker places, but we’re unsure about thing or two. And since the Shadow Syndicate was your creation…”
“It is dead and gone by now,” he cut in, his voice slightly lower than before, slightly deeper. “However you do want to ask if I do know someone resourceful, from back when it connected most of the criminal world.”
“Do you?”
Maul hummed. “I might. However finding said person through traditional channels would probably take months.”
“That’s not the time we have on our hands,” Sabine agreed. “But I’m going to try anyway. What are the less traditional ways of finding people anyway?”
Zeb could only guess that Maul smiled. He had seriously bad feeling about this.