Star Wars: On the Job

Chapter 11: Unloading

Time passed in dark, noisy wordlessness. Kanan had dropped the verbal argument after Hera gave him the ultimatum, but from the look on his face it was still raging inside his head. It was the same for her.

Scared of what? She knew the answer, but even if she admitted to it– even to herself– it wouldn't change the facts. Stopping the Empire was the life she had chosen and she couldn't live with herself if she chose any other. On the other hand, she could live with herself if she chose to go at it alone again. Well, not entirely alone. Hera's thoughts fell to a cantankerous, orange-domed C1 unit. The little droid would give her a hard time for leaving him behind for this long, but he would get over it and things would get back to the way they had been before Kanan Jarrus.

Scrubbing her forehead with the back of her fist, Hera wondered if she hadn't postponed picking up Chopper because she'd wanted to spend more time alone with Kanan. "Testing him out," she'd called it, seeing if he could be trusted with more sensitive information. And if she was being honest, she had wanted to see how much Jedi was left in him– if that's even what he had been when the Republic fell. Watching him now, she had to wonder. Weren't the Jedi supposed to be monastic warriors, selflessly serving the galaxy? Kanan was a far cry from that paradigm: a roustabout, a thrill-seeker, a flirt and a drifter. But he was also trustworthy, courageous, dependable and honest. Was she reading more into those merits than was really there? Was she seeing a legendary hero– a symbol of the galaxy she was trying to restore– because that's who she wanted to see, not because that's who he really was?

Kanan hadn't shown any further affinity for the Force in the months since he'd come aboard the Ghost, unless you counted his quick reflexes and intuition. If she hadn't seen him stop those falling debris on Forager she never would have suspected there was anything out of the ordinary with Kanan Jarrus. Whatever his connection to the Force or the Jedi might have been, he seemed determined to keep it out of his life as much as possible now. And he was doing a good job of it.

Hera's eyes flashed to his profile. Kanan's mouth was set in a grim line that turned the meter between them into a lightyear. His attention loomed on his console like a black cloud hovering over a mountain. Remembering that one of the conduits beneath the co-pilot's controls had been damaged, he'd set to fixing it with the same efficiency as he did everything else, flashlight gripped between his teeth. Now Kanan tapped at the screen and adjusted a control to the right. The display flashed red. His face remained a mask as he adjusted again.

Putting all thoughts of Kanan's hypothetical connection to the Jedi aside, Hera quizzed herself on the more practical question: did Kanan Jarrus fit in on the Ghost? And the answer was a resounding yes, he did. Beautifully. He fit so well that she'd found herself feeling more at ease than she had in a long time. More than that, the Ghost was in amazing order. The Phantom was almost up to specs. Even her missions, which Kanan usually opted to stay away from, typically went more smoothly. And when they didn't she'd had a partner she could rely on to provide the cover, talk the talk, make the getaway. But now...

Kanan's fingers skimmed over this control panel and the display rewarded him with a green glow. His eyes moved over a series of short readouts, but if he was satisfied that he'd finally solved the problem remained a mystery. His face never changed from that brooding glare. Hera assumed he'd still be wearing it when they made landfall on Husera in a few minutes.

She turned her attention back to her own controls. However this day was going to end, she was glad that at the very least this "simple job" was about to be over.

At long last the approach indicator flashed its blue-white warning and Kanan killed it with a noisy flick of a switch. Hera activated the controls and settled into her seat. Her shoulders relaxed a fraction with the yoke in her hand as she brought up her main display.