Star Wars Rebels: Skirting Around the Law Ch. 1

    Chapter 1: Now’s The Time

    “It is with great pleasure that I, your new Emperor,

    announce the recently allied planet of Mandalore

    shall house the Empire’s first military training facilities,

    so our brave clone soldiers shall no longer fight our wars.”

    - Emperor Palpatine, in one of his first executive orders

    as supreme leader of the Galactic Empire

     Kovan system, 5 BBY

    The TIE fighters swarmed the Ghost like Tethan hornets to a Muun sweet-treat as a Victory I-class star destroyer closed in from a distance. Its turbolasers trained on the Ghost and fired its lances of plasma at its hull, but they all missed.

    “Why can’t we seem to hit anything?!” one gunner shouted at his fellow over the sound of the weapons firing.

    “I don’t know!” the other replied.

    The Ghost veered and swung to avoid fire from the closer TIE fighters.

    “Hera! Where are we on those coordinates?!” Kanan called from the rearwards turret in the shuttle.

    “Almost there, honey! Hold them off a little longer!” she replied.

    Zeb fired on a TIE that came too close, and it exploded in a cloud of superheated gas. “Ha! Hit one! Try an’ keep up, kid, or you’ll fall behind in the count!”

    Portside, Ezra was still trying to get the cannon to shoot straight. “I’m--oof!--trying to--gah!--hit anything--gerr!--!”

    Sabine clambered in. “Ezra, how many times do I have to tell you, this one fires this--”-BABOOM!-”--and that one fires that!” ZANG!

    “Well why don’t you try shooting with this mechanical monstrosity!” he retorted. “Alright, I will!” she replied. She shoved him out of the turret seat and he promptly fell to the ground level of the Ghost. Chopper was there, whirring and making odd noises to express how he felt about this.

    “Well sorry, Chop, but you know how I am with using weapons larger than my body!”

    Waa-wa-wa-wa-waa.

    “I better go get my can opener then--”

    WAA-WA! Chopper whipped out one of his mechanical appendages that ended with a torch.

    “I was just joking! Sheesh!” Ezra cried, recoiling. But Chopper realized he had an opportunity to make some mischief. Instead of extinguishing the torch, he increased the intensity of the flare until one of the legs of Ezra’s trousers began to smolder. “AIYE!” Ezra squealed, and ran, Chopper right at his heels. He broke into the cockpit, where Hera was tersely trying to set a course. “Ezra? What--”

    “SAVE ME!” Ezra cried, dashing back out into the corridor, deftly leaping over Chopper’s dome. Chopper turned on his wheels and continued his pursuit while Hera shouted at him. Ezra eventually found himself in the reactor room, running in circles about the generator with Chopper in hot pursuit.

    “It was a joke, Chop! Can’t you take a joke? Huh?!”

    Waa-WA-wa-wa-wa!

    “I’m sorry, alright?!”

    Waaa-WA!

    Chopper stopped in his tracks, but Ezra kept running until he crashed into Chopper’s still body. He fell on his rear, and Chopper whipped out his electro-prod, charging it for a lingering sting. He whirred something threateningly as Ezra covered his face with his hands. Chopper raised the appendage, and fired as Ezra wheeled to the side, dodging the blow.

    “Missed, you scrap heap!” he cried, victorious.

    But now Chopper was no longer whirring in anger or glee; the bolt had burned through a poorly patched-up hole in the wall and fused several circuits together, and he was making every sound he possibly could to express his alarm. Ezra tried to fan out the flames beginning to emanate from the hole, but Chopper whipped out yet another arm with a miniature fire extinguisher and doused the flames. Ezra coughed as the smoke filled his lungs, and fell on his rear once more as the Ghost entered hyperspace.

    The door to the reactor room slid open as Kanan barged in. “What in Master Yaddle’s name was that, Ezra?! You distracted Hera and almost endangered the whole crew--”

    “It wasn’t me! It was Chopper! He was trying to shock me!”

    “Well then, what was that, Chopper? You nearly got us killed!”

    Waa-wa-WA!

    “We don’t own any can openers and you know it.”

    Waaaa.

    “Well, at least you put out the fire, or then we’d be deep in poodoo. But hey, at least we’re alive.”

    The overhead intercom crackled. “Crew, meet up in the mess in five for briefing!” Hera called.

    “Since when do we have briefings?” Ezra muttered.

    “Since we got caught up with that one ex-Inquisitor. His scheduling seems to have rubbed off on her…”

    The three went into the mess/kitchen where Sabine and Zeb were toasting another victory and drinking some Arkanian kores. “Want some?” Sabine offered Ezra swishing some of the bluish mixture in her glass.

    “Eh...thanks!” he replied, reaching for the glass--

    --just as she pulled it out of his reach. “Ha! Sorry, kid, but you aren’t old enough to handle fine delicacies like kores!”

    “Says who?” Ezra retorted.

    “Says the captain,” Hera replied cooly, who herself was sipping some kores.

    “That’s not fair! I can handle myself!”

    “Maybe you can, maybe you can’t,” Zeb said, “either way, captain’s orders, nothin’ more powerful than kores for those under fifteen’, nothin’ more powerful than ne’tra gal for those under twenty-four!”

    “And even then, sparse amounts.” Kanan added. “So what’s to know, o captain my captain?”

    “Well, thanks to Chopper and Ezra’s handiwork in the reactor room…”

    “Hey!”

    Waa-WA-wa.

    “...we have to stop for repairs. Our current route takes us to Dantooine, but there’s only one place where I know we can stop for repairs.”

    “Only one? No others?”

    “No others that I’m one hundred percent certain of.”

    She paused, pressing her cup of kores to her lips, as if uncertain to continue.

    “Hera? Everything alright?” Kanan inquired, concerned.

    “Yeah, honey, I’m good…” she trailed off.

    “The only place we can goes is Mandalore.”

    CRASH!

    The whole of the crew whirled around to find the source of the sound. It was Sabine; her glass had shattered in her hand, and kores now stained the table. She stood up abruptly, muttered an unintelligible apology, and dashed off to her quarters. Ezra and Zeb watched her run off with quizzical expressions on their faces. “What was that about?” Zeb inquired, gesturing in her direction. Hera bit her lower lip. “I suppose now’s the time to tell you,” she said, “how we came across Sabine and how she became one of our crew.”

    Ezra shifted into a seat, and Zeb pressed his hands together. Hera exhaled slowly. “Nearly five years ago, Kanan and I were making a run on Mandalore. One of the local resistance movements needed some backing in an assault on an Imperial embassy. The local governor had been cracking down on the locals.”

    She smirked humorlessly. “They were cracking back hard. They wanted nothing to do with the Empire. There was open protesting and gunfights with stormtroopers. For a time, the Mandalorians had the spark of rebellion, and the Empire couldn’t fight back. But then it got serious,” she added, her tone growing dark. “Heavy ops troopers came in with ballistics and flamethrowers. Commandos were given orders to take local resistance leaders hostage. Resistance supporters were shot on sight. Then there was the Battle of Keldabe.”

    Hera’s eyes began to water over, as memories began to wash over her. “It was glorious. Fenn Shysa himself led the charge, going head-to-head with an Inquisitor than came in for ‘peacekeeping.’ In the end, the Mandos won. But at a heavy cost. Many wives lost their husbands, and many young men and women were not there to sing Dha Werda Verda. That’s where we found her.”

    “She was lying over the body of a fallen Mandalorian, just about her age and height. She was crying so hard, and I could see why; the other had taken a thermal det, probably for Sabine. It was sobering to see. We comforted her in every way we could, tried to ask her where her parents were, but she said, ‘Don’t take me to them. They’ll hate me.’”

    “So we didn’t. And you know why we agreed to let an eleven-year-old girl choose what to do? She nailed a stormtrooper right in the visor that had almost shot me. It takes a lot to impress us, and she met the expectations. She had a bunk and a home.”

    Hera sighed. “But even now I wonder, why would her parents hate her? What had she done? But I never asked. It’s a touchy subject with her. So I figure she doesn’t want to go back to Mandalore for fear of her parents finding her. Among other things.”

    Hera’s tone implied she didn’t want to elaborate, so neither Zeb nor Ezra pushed. All present had fallen into silence, for either a newfound or renewed sense of respect for their comrade-in-arms.

    In her quarters, Sabine was curled in her bunk, wracked with sobs. She whispered, through her sobs, “Ni ceta, Vesta, ni ceta. It’s all my fault…”