Chapter Text
Alarms scream in Sabine’s ears, nearly drowning out the incessant chirp of her commlink. Hera’s calling.
“Spectre 5, what’s your status?” Hera’s voice, tinny and thin through the transmission, is calm—too calm. Sabine never heard Hera use that tone during her time as a Captain in the Rebellion. It came later, sculpted by years of reassuring frightened soldiers they would indeed see tomorrow. It’s the voice she uses to lie.
“I’m heading to the command deck now,” Sabine says. “What’s—”
The deck of Home One shudders beneath her boots as an enemy vessel seals itself, leechlike, to the docking port. Sabine stumbles, bracing herself against the wall with a gloved hand. Her fingers linger on the surface, tracing over carbon scoring and pockmarks left by blasters.
“Belay that,” Hera orders. “Head for the lower hanger. Jacen will be waiting for you. Take the Ghost and get him out.”
Sabine blinks. “Get him out?” she repeats. “Hera—”
“There’s no time. We talked about this, Sabine. If he finds us, you take Jacen and you run.”
Sabine is indignant. “I’m not leaving you.”
“I wasn’t asking.” Hera’s voice is steel.
The alarms grow improbably louder. Sabine hardly hears them.
“I’m proud of you,” she hears Hera say, her tone softer now. “Take care of Jacen. And yourself.”
The channel goes silent.
Sabine reaches for the commlink, an argument already forming on her lips. But a new sound has joined the alarms, now. It’s one familiar to her, one she hoped never to hear again. The measured tread of a Stormtrooper’s armored boots.
No, not a Stormtrooper—a Nightrooper. She remembers now.
She tears herself away, then—away from the woman who took her in, who raised her, who loved her as her own. For once in her life, Sabine does as she is told. She runs.
It’s not far to the lower hanger. Sabine sprints the familiar halls. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, smarting her eyes and burning her lungs. She doesn’t slow. She has to reach Jacen.
The hanger is at the end of this hall. Sabine rounds the corner, plunges through the door—and stops. In the middle of the hanger, standing by the Ghost’s lowered ramp, is Jacen. Four Nightroopers surround him, blasters trained on the child’s chest.
“Drop your weapons,” the trooper on the left says, “or he dies.”
For the second time today, Sabine does as she is told.
Nightroopers appear on either side of her. She could take them, she knows she could. She itches to. But she can’t—won’t—risk Jacen. They seize her, then, marching her across the hanger to join her young charge. The trooper gripping her left arm kicks at the back of her leg and she falls to her knees.
They release her arms. Sabine knows the drill. She raises her hands and places them on back of her head.
They wait in silence for several minutes. For what, Sabine doesn’t know.
Then Jacen goes stiff. He reaches for Sabine, but a trooper shoves him back into place.
“It’s ok,” Sabine tells him. “Just listen to the troopers. You’ll be ok.” She hopes she’s telling the truth.
Jacen’s eyes are wide. “Mom’s scared,” he says.
Sabine’s stomach drops, but she can’t let Jacen know. She searches for something reassuring to say and comes up short.
It hits her like a knife in the gut, then. It’s like nothing she’s sensed before, an emptiness so profound she nearly crumples. Sabine doesn’t know how she knows, but she does.
Hera is dead.
She is aware of Jacen screaming out, of a trooper receiving an order, of blasters being readied. She knows what’s coming. She’s powerless to stop it. She failed.
The grinding click of a blaster about to fire sounds behind her. Sabine grabs Jacen’s hand and closes her eyes.
ོᨒ↟
The Noti don’t use beds. They have no reason for them. Ezra’s pod is the only one built to accommodate a human’s needs. And so, Sabine wakes with hands twisting a blanket which still bears the faint scent of her brother. His pod is dark, quiet, maddeningly peaceful.
Her heart drums in her ears, her body quakes with adrenaline, tears streak her face. She’s had nightmares before. More often than not, perhaps. But this one felt different. It felt real.
It felt like her visions of Mandalore.
Before the Purge.
Before she lost everything.
Sabine sits. She catches her breath. She stands.
If this was a warning, she’s not going to stand idle. Not this time.
Sabine exits Ezra’s pod. The stars seem particularly bright tonight, casting a watery glow over gentle hills blanketed in tall grass. Mountains rise resolute around her, distant behemoths of stone. The snow-capped tip of the farthest one almost seems to shine.
A fire is lit in the center of the Noti camp. Sabine sees the unmistakable silhouette of Ahsoka tending to the flames. She walks toward her and seats herself on a nearby stone.
The warmth of the fire is welcome—the air seems almost fanged at night, here, tearing at any exposed skin. The days are warmer, but not by much.
“I had a vision,” Sabine says.
“A vision?” Ahsoka invites.
Sabine nods. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” She hesitates, tracing her fingers over the seams of her vambraces, taking comfort in their familiar shape. “We need to get home.”
Ahsoka looks at her, steady and solid. “What did you see?”
“I was on Home One. Thrawn found us, I don’t know how. We—” her voice breaks and she looks away from her mentor. “I failed. They didn’t make it. Hera, Jacen…”
Ahsoka nods, pensive. “Settle your thoughts,” she tells Sabine. “Breathe.”
“What?” Sabine feels anger—fear?—rise in her chest. “You don’t believe me.”
“Sabine.” There is no irritation in Ahsoka’s voice. “Breathe.”
Sabine doesn’t want to sit here any longer. She wants to take action, wants to jump on her Howler, ride off into the night, and comb every inch of this planet for a way home. But something in Ahsoka’s tone gives her pause. She drags a breath into her lungs, closes her eyes, feels the way the cold makes her chest ache. Her mind slows, thoughts filter into place. When she opens her eyes again Ahsoka’s warm gaze greets her.
“I believe you saw something.” There is empathy in Ahsoka’s voice, layered with something Sabine can’t quite place. “But not everything is as it appears.”
Sabine huffs. “It seems pretty clear to me.”
“Thrawn is coming for our galaxy,” Ahsoka says. “That I can’t deny. But—” she pauses, looks up at the moon above as if searching for guidance. “I don't know how to explain it, but there’s something here. A shadow. It drapes over this planet. And tonight, I felt it thick over you.”
“A… shadow?” Sabine blinks. “What do you—”
Ahsoka rises to her feet, hands lighting upon her sabers as she turns to face the night beyond them. Sabine stands and joins her.
There, silhouetted at the top of a nearby hill, stands a person. They raise something above their head and a faint crackle-thrum of energy breaks the night’s silence as an orange lightsaber ignites.
Hati.
Sabine’s hand flies to her saber. Raiders charge from the darkness, shouting and whooping as they descend upon the Noti encampment. They part behind the mercenary like water around a stone, leaving a clear path between her and Sabine. A strange anger flares in her chest as Hati advances toward them, her pace slow and deliberate.
Windows slam and doors lock as Noti secure themselves inside their pods.
“Go,” Ahsoka says. “I’ll handle the raiders.”
Sabine needs no encouragement. She ignites her saber and charges to face Hati.
They collide just outside the Noti encampment. The clash of sabers reverberates throughout the valley as their blades meet in a test of each other's strength, and Sabine is surprised to find the mercenary lacking. The light of their crossed blades spills across Hati’s face, revealing a dark bruise over one eye. Her lip is split, her cheekbones more prominent than Sabine remembers. But she’s fast as ever, lunging and slashing like some starving creature desperate to make its next kill.
Sabine blocks a spinning strike. She lunges close with an attack of her own, but Hati sidesteps and kicks out, catching Sabine just beneath her ribs. Her armor absorbs most of the impact, but it’s still enough to send the air rushing from her lungs in one painful breath. A flurry of strikes drives her back and she coughs as she drags frigid air into empty lungs.
Sabine has nearly recovered herself when her foot slips on a loose stone. She stumbles only a moment, but it’s enough for Hati. The mercenary’s saber finds an opening in her guard and arcs toward Sabine. It stops an inch from Sabine’s throat, close enough to feel the heat of the blade. So bitter is the night, the warmth is almost welcome.
...Almost.
Sabine glares at her opponent, saber clutched uselessly in her fist. To move would mean a swift and certain death, but inaction may invite the same.
Something—triumph?—flickers in Hati’s eyes. Sabine sees her body tense as she draws back slightly, building momentum for the fatal strike.
It’s action or death. A strange feeling of anger overcomes Sabine. Strength floods her body and she reaches out with her mind, searching for a way to strike back, to survive, to make Hati hurt.
She finds it in the form of a stone, sitting innocuous about ten feet to her right. Time seems to slow as Sabine seizes it with her mind and flings it at her foe.
The stone catches Hati in the side of the head, just above her ear, and the mercenary crumples, wordless, to the ground.
A vicious sort of satisfaction burns through Sabine. She’s done it. She’s won.
Finish it, she feels something say. And why shouldn’t she, really? What has Hati caused her but pain?
She raises her saber over the body of her foe, pausing a moment to savor her victory. But then Hati stirs, hand moving to cradle her injured head as she bites back a groan. Her eyes open and meet Sabine’s.
Fear. Shame. Loss. Loneliness. The emotions hit Sabine like a ton of duracrete. The green light of Sabine’s blade flickers in Hati’s wide eyes. The mercenary cringes away from her, then, exhaling raggedly as she prepares herself for the end.
It doesn't come.
Sabine lowers her blade, shocked back to herself by the pure grief radiating from Hati. She’s never known the emotions of another before, but there’s something familiar about it, something she can’t place, something that gives her pause.
Hati opens her eyes and regards Sabine.
“What are you waiting for?” she asks, voice hollow.
Sabine doesn’t have an answer.
Footsteps approach and Sabine risks a glance toward them. Ahsoka. It’s then that Sabine realizes the silence of night has returned, as though never broken. The battle is over. They’ve won.
Ahsoka moves to stand by Sabine’s side. She looks down at Hati steadily.
“Where is your master?” she asks Hati. “Where is Baylan Skoll?”
The mercenary’s gaze hardens. Her hands ball into fists. She clenches her jaw.
“You don’t know, do you?” Sabine realizes.
Hati’s glare only confirms her suspicions.
“He left you,” Sabine guesses.
Hati’s mouth opens as though about to speak, but no words come.
Sabine knows she shouldn’t take joy in the misery of another, but it’s all so right, somehow, that Hati should fall this way. “I’m not surprised,” she finishes.
Hati’s face contorts, and before Sabine can blink, she’s snatched a small, white blade from her belt and slashed it across Sabine’s saber. The saber’s blade flickers twice, then powers down.
Hati lunges for Sabine, then, the strange knife aimed for the gap between her kar'ta beskar and chestplate. The tip of the blade has just touched Sabine’s skin when Hati is flung away from her.
Ahsoka stands, hands outstretched, propelling Hati away from her apprentice. The mercenary slams into a Noti pod and, for the second time that night, crumples unconscious to the ground.