Chapter Text
Alliance bases were getting worse. Admittedly, Dantooine had been a step up from Atollion, and Yavin hadn’t been too bad either, she supposed, but Hoth? She was never going to be able to persuade Kanan now.
He was down enough on Alliance bases, now that they were getting bigger and more organised, more paramilitary than ever. (He didn’t like the attention he drew on Alliance bases, he said. She’d tried suggesting that maybe he could at least try to act blind around other people, but apparently that was unreasonable.) But Hoth? A planet so cold she was wearing winter clothing indoors? No way.
Not even the rumours about the Jedi pilot hero who blew up the Death Star had piqued enough interest among the Spectres. She had thought that maybe, just maybe, that would have gotten Ezra’s attention, or Hera’s. But they were staying stubbornly… wherever they were. Sabine hadn’t heard from them for a while. It was unsettling, but Admiral Sato wasn’t worried. They were doing some deep cover thing, which was supposed to reassure her, but she knew how those kinds of thing usually ended.
Still, maybe if the Alliance was home to an out and proud Jedi, if Sabine could corroborate the rumour, then maybe Kanan and Ezra would come and meet him. Maybe even Rex would. She hadn’t seen him for too long – he had been stationed on Yavin 4, but he wasn’t loving Hoth either. Apparently he had complained of old bones and aching joints. Sabine suspected he was back on Seelos with his brothers, and that he had lost hope after jumping after every little hint of a Jedi for years after Ahsoka. But, if she told him there was a real, live Jedi on Hoth, he would come. Because he still had a need to serve wired into him, and a need to atone to the Jedi for what his brothers had done. His men, specifically.
That was the reason she had found herself in the hangar, perched on the top of an X-Wing, watching a blond kid about Ezra’s age work with a lightsabre and a practice drone. It wasn’t out of idle curiosity – it was for Kanan and Ezra, and for Rex.
The practice wasn’t the best performance but, from the whispers, she had determined that he was alone, that his master had died on the Death Star and that they hadn’t been training all that long. He was blocking most of the drone’s shots, but it wasn’t exactly on a high setting.
Maybe she should do what Chopper had done for Ezra occasionally, and offer some ‘assistance’? Was that fair? (Was war fair?) Or would it be for her own amusement, like it was when Chopper did it?
No, she decided: he needed an incentive to step up his training. Just in case an Inquisitor reared its ugly head. Or Vader, for that matter.
She made sure her weapon was set to stun, and fired once before dropping off the ship and running for cover.
He deflected the shot, but immediately disengaged the droid and shoved his blindfold up. His eyes scanned for her.
“Who’s there?”
Really? Going to have to ask better questions than that.
“Is that you, Han?”
Not necessarily a better question, but at least the kid seemed to have at least one friend who would take pot shots at him. That would keep him on his toes.
Speaking of, she fired again, and leaped away, landing on the top of a stack of fuel drums.
He made a reasonable attempt to deflect the bolt back at her. It was as well he missed, really, and hit her original hiding place instead of her new one. The stun bolt probably wouldn’t do any harm, but it was always better to be safe than sorry around fuel drums. Especially when she was standing on top of them instead of intentionally blowing them up.
“Not bad, Kid,” she praised. “Needs a little work, but you’ll get there.”
The kid extinguished his lightsabre and stared at her, trying to figure her out.
“You… you’ve seen a lightsabre before?”
Sabine shrugged. “Yeah. Been a while. My vod’ika was worse than you when he started out.”
She hadn’t intended to use the Mando’a word – tried not to in company. Mandalorians off of Mandalore were generally regarded with suspicion. Mando’a was for her and Rex, in private. Yet, it had slipped out.
“What’s ‘vod’ika’?”
She grinned down at him. “Catch me and I’ll tell you.”
It was a gamble – Ezra probably could have done it at this point in his training, but he had been surviving on the streets for years at that point. This kid was well-fed and clearly had someone caring for him – he hadn’t needed to learn like Ezra had.
She bounded away, leaping from drum to X-Wing to crate to freighter. The kid pursued her, but he was slow, clumsy, even. It was more of a challenge to keep him only a little way behind her as she made her escape into the air vent she had entered the hangar through. The kid wouldn’t fit, she knew, and she gave him a little wave as she slid into the cool metal vent.