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The rebellion on Yavin IV ran much differently than the individual rebel pods that the crew were used to. Gone were the days of daredevil on-a-whim missions. The crew was assigned missions by intel, often gaining their missions from the formerly agent-now-just-Kallus. This left them with little free time for their former shenanigans. One of their few traditions they kept was family game night. Every week they met at the tap cafe or more often, gathered on the Ghost to play a various game, chosen by a spectre.
This week it was Ezra’s turn to choose. The rain of Yavin IV slammed down on the metal roof of the ghost as the spectres gathered around the common table to hear Ezra’s decision. Ezra hid a board behind his back “And I choose … space Monopoly!”
Instantly, a chorus of groans filled the ship. “Ezra, can you please choose a different game?” asked Hera, “you remember what happened last time?”
“You still owe me credits from that,” added Sabine, mimicking a “pay up” motion with her hand.
“It’ll be different this time!” said Ezra, “plus these are the rules that Hera made.” At this comment Hera groaned, remembering that she had in fact made those rules after a heated argument about what to play.
“Wait,” Ezra said, shushing Sabine’s muttered complaints, “Where’s Zeb?”
“Stop trying to distract me from your terrible taste in games,” said Sabine.
“No, he’s not here.”
They all looked around, searching for their purple friend who they could have sworn was there earlier. He wasn’t exactly a hard figure to miss. Hera pulled out her comm. “I’ll call him.” The comm rang once. Twice. Then there was a click and a familiar voice filled the air.
“What’s up?” asked Zeb. It sounded like he was trying not to laugh, and Hera could have sworn she heard someone else in the background.
Sabine leaned over to the comm and asked, “Where are you? We have game night and you’re not leaving us to do space monopoly alone.”
“I’m-uh-with Kallus,” Zeb said, and yes, there was definitely laughing there.
“You mean your boyfriend?” Ezra said cheekily. Ever since he found out about Kallus and Zeb’s “adventure” on the ice moon he had been teasing Zeb about his “ partner,” “boyfriend,” and on one occasion that nearly ended with blood, his “hubby.”
There was a rapid movement on the other side of the comm, as if someone was placing a hand over it, and then another movement indicating a removal of said hand. Zeb growled “Ezra. I’m going to kriffing kill you.” Then he hung up.
“Great job Ezra,” deadpanned Sabine, “we didn’t even issue him an ultimatum about space Monopoly.”
Chopper warbled something about the lines of “Yeah Ezra.” Sensing that any disagreement between Ezra and Chopper would not end well, Kanan stepped in. “Why don’t you call him back?”
Hera rang Zeb again. No answer.
“Wait.” said Sabine, “Call Kallus instead.” Hera did, and the comm was quickly picked up.
“Hello?” responded Kallus tentatively. A groan was heard in the background.
“Kallus,” stated Hera in her no-nonsense tone, “You and Zeb will be at family game night in ten minutes.
“But-”
“Alexsandr Kallus. That’s an order.”
Kallus sighed, “yes sir,” and Hera promptly hung up.
*
“- So then Ezra throws the meiloorun at the officer, but I’m still in the tie.”
“Mind you, I had only told them to get meiloorun so that they would stop bickering in the ship,” added Hera.
“I’m shocked you ever managed to beat me back then” smiled Kallus.
The ghost crew was assembled around the table and Zeb was animatedly telling the story of his and Ezra’s meiloorun adventure to Kallus. With the exception of Ezra and Chopper, they were hoping that this would significantly delay space Monopoly.
“-Hold on” interjected Ezra, “We’re supposed to be starting the game.”
They all sighed while Ezra grabbed the box, “Dibs on the loth cat.”
“Ezra, you always get the loth cat, you don’t need to call dibs,” said Sabine, picking out the mandalorian helmet.
“Well yeah, you made it for me!”
That was in fact true. Sabine had made custom pieces for the crew. Upon his request, she had made Zeb a stormtrooper helmet that he slammed on the board with gusto. Kanan had a speeder, Hera a prized miniature ghost, and Chopper a model of himself.
When they were passing out the pieces they encountered an unexpected problem. “There are seven of us but only six pieces,” realized Ezra.
“Oh I can just sit out-” started Kallus.
“No,” said Kanan, placing a hand on his shoulder, “we invited you.”
“I’ve gotta idea,” grinned Zeb, “Chopper doesn’t need to play.”
Chopper grumbled and started to bring out his arm. Kanan wisely stepped in, stopping Chopper in his path of attack, “I’ll play with Hera and Alexsandr can have my piece. Besides, even with the special cards, I can’t easily play on my own.”
“I’ve finished setting up the board,” announced Sabine. “I’ll be the ban-”
“I’ll be the banker,” Hera said firmly, knowing that despite appearing like she didn’t care about space Monopoly, Sabine could get quite competitive against her family.
*
Hera knew that making those rules had been a mistake. For her part, it had been a noble effort to stop the weekly arguments that ultimately led to no game being chosen. It may have been a slight oversight to allow complete power of game choice to the spectre of the week, and it was this she now regretted as Ezra tried to steal credits from Zeb for the third time. Unsuccessfully.
“Kid,” growled Zeb “You do that one more time and you’re sleeping in Kanan’s room for a week.” He had grabbed the game credits that Ezra had been floating towards himself, and was staring daggers at Ezra, who sat between Kallus and Sabine.
“I’m just trying to take advantage of all the tools at my disposal,” Ezra retorted.
Sabine rolled her eyes “You’re just sad you’re losing.”
“You’re still in jail!”
“And?”
Sabine had an unfortunate habit of ending up in jail, and despite her protests that she could break out, no one allowed her to. While Ezra and Zeb were arguing, Kallus took the opportunity to stealthily take all of Ezra’s credits, nodding at Sabine’s smirk.
“HEY!” Ezra exclaimed, “Where’d all my credits go?”
He turned and saw Kallus with a significantly larger pile of credits than what he had before. Kallus slipped a few of said credits to Sabine.
“He can’t do that!” he pointed.
“He’s just trying to take advantage of all the tools at his disposal,” Sabine laughed, counting her newly acquired credits. Kallus, looking very pleased, said “Jabba, you must remember that it’s important to keep an eye on all your assets."
“Kanannnn.” whined Ezra.
Kanan, who up until this point had been sitting comfortably with his arm around Hera while they accumulated credits, smiled. “I can’t find a flaw in his logic.”
Ezra leveled his gaze at Hera, who shrugged at him. He slumped back into his seat, pouting dramatically.
“You may have a moment of luck,” Hera pointed out, “Chopper’s about to go and he’s all out of credits.”
They all fell silent as Chopper picked up the cup of dice. They spun across the table before decisively landing. A three and a two pointing at the ceiling, and Chopper pushed his piece across the board.
“That’ll be credits to us,” said Kanan.
“Karking hells,” grumbled Chopper, “Bet you’re using Jedi tricks to cheat.”
Hera glared at him, “You know I wouldn’t let him. Now don’t be a sore loser.”
As Chopper began to push the extremely large pile of credits over Ezra grinned, “How’s it feel to lose?” he mocked. At this Chopper stopped and slowly turned to Ezra. If an astromech could be menacing then it was him. In a burst of action, he flew across the table at Ezra, flipping the board as he did so.
Absolute madness ensued.
Ezra and Chopper began a tussle that Kanan and Hera gave up on trying to solve within the first minute. Sabine leaned back, cheering and booing at certain brutal words in exchange or blows. Zeb took Chopper’s pile of credits, despite the game being very obviously over, then moved to the other side of the commons out of the fray. He brought Kallus with him, who looked very lost at the whole situation. It was just as Ezra had yelled, “THAT’S IT, I’M GETTING MY LIGHTSABER,” that Hera decided it was an appropriate moment to step in.
“Ezra and Chopper. You are both going to clean up this mess of a board.”
Ezra began to protest, and she continued “Without fighting. Kanan and I are making caf. Zeb, Sabine, and Alex-Don’t get into any trouble.”
With that she and Kanan headed into the gallery, door swishing shut behind them. Chopper and Ezra began to put the credits back in the box, but not without a couple swipes and pokes at each other.
Sabine went back to one of her favorite pastimes- convincing Kallus to let her experiment with his hair. “Well, Ezra’s hair is too short now for me to do anything fun with it, and Kanan refuses to have his hair in anything but a ponytail.”
“What about Zeb?” Kallus asked, shooting a glance at Zeb, who glared back, “She’s not allowed to go anywhere near my hair after what she did to it last time.” Last time may have included a couple bottles of pink hair dye, a bottle of shampoo, and a very disgruntled lasat. He’d been pink for weeks.
“Besides,” added Sabine, “I wouldn’t even need to bleach your hair.”
“You can’t dye my hair.”
“Blue, or maybe some green?” Sabine mused, ignoring Kallus.
Ezra, having finished cleaning, popped up behind Sabine, “You could dye it purple to match his b-mph” He didn’t finish that sentence, being thrown into a headlock by Zeb, hand over his mouth. “Why don’t we turn the focus to you, kid,” he threatened, “You wanna tell Kal why monopoly is so discouraged?”
Chopper warbled in amusement, adding his vote to this idea.
Sabine grinned, pleased to annoy Ezra even if it stopped her considerations about Kallus’ hair, “I’m sure he’s heard of that fire in the tapcafe.”
Kallus raised an eyebrow, “From what I heard, that fire shut down the tapcafe for multiple weeks and made them rethink their droid allowance policy.”
“Chopper and Ezra had to clean all the carbon scoring off the Ghost,” Sabine said, “But only after Ezra recovered from eating twenty-two meiloorun cakes.
“He still owes her from losing that bet,” said Zeb.
“Hey!” complained Ezra, “You’re both acting like you didn’t do anything embarrassing that night! What about Zeb drinking chugging Corellian ales to beat Kanan?”
“You did what?”
“Orrrrr,” Ezra smirked, “Sabine’s and Zeb’s impromptu tattoos. I don’t even know how they managed to tattoo fur.”
“I’m starting to understand why monopoly is so discouraged here,” said Kallus, “And why they always suggest your crew for the insane missions.”
“That’s our thing,” said Sabine, “And we’re pretty damn good at it.”
The gallery door wooshed open, interrupting Kallus’ attempts to understand how the Ghost crew had stayed alive for so long, and Hera walked out with a large pot. “I made dinner,” she declared, “It’s stew.”
“You?” Sabine asked in horror.
“On an unrelated note, I need to leave,” added Zeb.
Ezra wisely stayed silent, knowing he was already on his last straw. However, he did make a disgusted face.
“I’m just kidding,” said Hera, and they sighed, “Kanan made it.” Kanan exited the kitchen with a large stack of bowls and started handing them out. The stew was indeed delicious, full of vegetables native to Yavin IV. The pot was just enough for all six people eating it, and afterwards they all started to doze off.
Ezra brought out the blankets from his bunk and spread out on the floor, while Sabine curled up in the corner. Kallus fell asleep with his head on Zeb’s shoulder, and Chopper shut down next to Hera.
Kanan left the kitchen and sat next to Hera. “Maybe monopoly can end well,” he said smiling. She wrapped an arm around him and leaned in, “And I’m sure we would have won if Chopper hadn’t flipped the board.”
He laughed quietly as to not wake the others, “Goodnight Hera.”
“Goodnight dear.”