NOT JUST A TOOL

by A.R. Davenport

From the cockpit of the Ghost, Hera saw Kanan cautiously enter the shadows of the docking bay. Bruma's smaller, slender form was with him.

"They're back!" she called out, jumping up from the pilot's seat. "Chopper get the ship ready." The droid blatted a 'waaa-waa' acknowledgement as she hurried out.

She felt the engines starting up as she hurried to the cargo bay; it was already full of fearful people, green, blue, purple, yellow lekku twitching with anxiety. They were not safe yet. Not until they got off the planet and reached the Banato colony, outside the reach of the Empire's slavers. But they could not leave one behind.

Annoyingly, nobody opened the ramp; men, women and children just parted to let her pass, their eyes filled with worry that doing anything might endanger their not-complete rescue. Hera hit the glow-plate by the exit and the open-squawk sounded. Kanan hustled Bruma up the ramp before it had touched the duracrete. Hera closed it behind them.

"Ooooooh!" Neram threw herself on her daughter and wept, Bruma's father and little brother close behind. Hera's heart sank as she saw the girl's stiff, almost fearful response. Wrapped in a coarse gray blanket, she was slim and pretty with a smooth dark blue complexion and had been singled out for 'special preparations' as a slave. Many species found Twi'lek's attractive and slavers often singled them out for sex servitude.

A moment later, her father separated her from her mother, and hands on her shoulders, he asked what happened. She did not answer; she sniffed, struggling to hold back more tears, her eyes cast downward to the deck. The others averted their eyes, mothers and fathers hugging their small children to them, friends embracing.

"I'll kill him. I'll kill him!"

Hera threw herself between him and ramp.

"No! We have to leave. Now."

"Noooo! Father, nooo!" Bruma threw her arms around his waist. The blanket fell away, revealing the flimsy red and orange clothing that covered little of her shapely body. "No, please! The beast who - who touched me is dead! He's dead! Kanan killed him. He's dead!" She dissolved into tears, falling to her knees, still clutching her father. His wrath diverted, he knelt as well and she threw her arms around his neck. "He's dead. He's dead. Kanan - - he - he -he - put a blaster bolt right between his eyes. He's dead, father, he's dead! Please, can we go? Can we go? I just want to go."

"We're going," Hera announced. Heads snapped up to her. "Now." She spoke to Bruna's mother, her violet eyes wounded, but she nodded. "Everyone, to your cabins or the common room," she commanded, the captain of her ship, as she headed for the ladder. She did not look back, but heard the others following.

Reaching the cockpit, Hera found only Chopper waiting at the nav station. The co-pilot's seat was empty. She glanced back at the closed door. Was he already in the top gunner's seat? Just in case they were pursued? But they had agreed earlier that active pursuit unlikely as long as they got away quickly.

Taking her seat, she initiated the anti-gavs. The Ghost smoothly lifted off. The sky rapidly darkened from early evening to starry black. She activated the internal com.

"Kanan?"

No answer. Hera guided the Ghost into the orbit lane that Chopper had gotten the spaceport to assign to them. The engines boosted them out of orbit toward their hyperspace point. The coordinates glowed green on her panel.

"Kanan?"

"Yeah, Hera. Do you need me?" his voice answered from the com.

"Just checking to see if we should expect any company." Her scanners were clear, nothing near or approaching. "Did everything go all right back there? Bruma said you killed one of the slavers."

"Yeah." Pause. "But he didn't get a chance to call for help and we hid the body in her bunk. They won't find it 'til the others get back."

"Copy that." Her eyes flicked toward the empty co-pilot's seat, where she had gotten used to seeing him. She switched the com to all-stations. "We're about to enter hyperspace. Course set for Banato." She pushed the levers, the stars ahead streaking, and the Ghost leapt into the un-real transit of hyperspace.

Hera checked the readings. Everything normal. Chopper confirmed it. So, she sat back in her seat and stared at the pastel non-shapes that the ship now traveled through. There wasn't much for a pilot to do in hyperspace, all the coordinates pre-set, the ship flying on auto-pilot with Chopper on watch.

She turned back toward the door and got up.

She slowly approached Kanan's cabin door and knocked.

"Kanan?"

No answer.

Knock louder. "Kanan?"

"Yeah, Hera. Do you need me?"

The don't-bother-me tone surprised her, but she did not need him for anything.

"No. Just checking. We should arrive at Banato in about four hours."

"Fine."

She looked at the door, but no other words came through it. The door opposite Kanan's opened and a family of six peered out.

"Are we safe?" the yellow-hued grandmother asked. She would not have lasted long; slavers usually just worked older captives to death.

"We're in hyperspace. No one followed us. We'll be at Banato soon."

Hope displaced some of the worry in their eyes, but Hera doubted that the adults who knew better would celebrate until they had reached safety on solid ground. A little girl with bright aqua skin and short lekku tottered out, arms up. Smiling, Hera met her, picking her up. She invited the family to the common room of the ship.

Most of the others were there, filling the seats, sitting on the deck; four young adults clustered around the dejarik holo-game board; a couple of the others passed around bowls of snacks. The provisions in the galley were a little skimpy for such a large group, but they would do. Banato was only one hyperspace jump away. Hera handed off the little girl to her mother who started a chorus of heartfelt 'thank-you's.

"Where's your Hu-man?"

Hera turned to see Larax, as much of a leader as this group had, standing over her, his pale yellow-hued, muscular arms folded over his chest. He was the friend of a friend of somebody's second cousin who knew someone in the fledgling resistance to the Empire who put him in contact with Hera whose cargo ship was large enough to transport him and his fellow refugees.

"He's in his cabin."

Larax raised his heavy brows, expecting more. Ever since they made contact with him, he seemed to enjoy implying that there must be something romantic going on between Hera and Kanan Jarrus. She had tired of telling him that Kanan was just a member of her crew and did not acknowledge his gesture to say more. He sighed.

"Thank-you," he said, his tone lowering, serious. "You have given us back our lives." He took her hand and bowed over it.

"You are most welcome. It's the least I can do." Hera wondered if his hints about romance between her and Kanan were just cover for his own interest, at least for the sake of his wife and children, two of whom joined them. He released Hera's hand.

Glancing around the room, Hera counted. Loose children were never a good idea on a spaceship and she conferred with a couple of the older adults and they spent several minutes accounting for everyone. Hera made sure that the doors to the gun turrets were locked. Several of the refugees were from Ryloth, Hera's home world. She had not been there in years and the news of the Empire's occupation was not good. But it was talk of her father's part in the resistance on her homeworld that pushed her to excuse herself from the group and retreat to the cockpit. Hera loved her father, but they had not gotten along since her mother died.

On her way, Hera slowed by Kanan's cabin door, listening for any sound within. She heard nothing.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except for a short visit to the cockpit by the most well-behaved children in the group and their watchful parents. Soon, Hera was dropping the Ghost out of hyperspace and landing in an open field near Bonato. A small group came out to greet her passengers.

Kanan did not emerge for the occasion.

Standing on the ramp, Hera watched the refugees being welcomed to their new home. Any strike against the Empire was worthwhile. Too many people thought that small scale opposition was pointless. But one only had to look at a person's smile or listen to a child's laugh in freedom to know how untrue that was.

A slender, dark blue figure darted away from the group, running up to her on the ramp. Bruma threw her arms around her in a fierce hug and Hera accepted it. Someone had gotten her a loose shirt and pants to cover herself with.

"I'll never tell anyone how Kanan killed that slaver. Never." Bruma pulled back, her eyes radiating the same intensity of her fiercely whispered declaration.

"Thank-you. To both of you."

Without waiting for an answer, she whirled about and ran back to her parents and hugged them both.

No act of defiance to the Empire was too small for Hera.

The group finally started to move away toward the nearby settlement with many waves and shouted thanks. Hera went back into her ship, up to the cockpit and started the take-off sequence.

Kanan was still nowhere to be seen. Even Chopper blatted out an inquiry.

"He just needs a little privacy." She pointed a stern warning to her astromech. "Don't bother him."

"Waaah-waa-waa - - - "

"That an order, Chopper."

The squat droid rattled and finished the navigation calculations. Hera took the Ghost into hyperspace as soon as the coordinates lighted up her board. She told Chopper to stay on watch as she went aft.

Hera had no idea what Kanan needed. But she had waited long enough.

She knocked on his door. "Kanan?"

No answer.

"Kanan?"

She waited several beats more.

She paced a few times in front of the door, back and forth and finally decided that she had waited long enough. No door on her ship was locked to her.

"Huuuh?"

Green eyes wide, she stood in the open doorway, reconsidering her choice.

Kanan knelt on the deck on a folded pad from the bunk, his face in profile. In the air before him drifted a collection of small shapes, among them a glowing blue crystal. Among the pieces, Hera recognized the body of Kanan's lightsaber that he had worn on his belt, concealed in plain sight, as a simple power cell on their rescue mission.

Stepping forward into the dimly lit room, the door slid shut behind her. She lowered herself to the deck, knelt and silently watched the lightsaber pieces slowly dance in the air in lazy circles. They drifted into a line, pommel at one end, emitter at the other, the glowing crystal near that, sliding into a small, delicate cage between emitter and power cell.

"The crystal is the heart of the blade.

The heart is the crystal of the Jedi."

Kanan spoke softly. Transfixed, Hera stayed still, almost holding her breath and knowing that this had to be ritual that Jedi did not typically share with outsiders.

"The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.

"The Force is the blade of the heart."

The saber pieces drew together and clicked into the whole.

'The Force is the blade of the heart. All are intertwined: The crystal, The blade, The Jedi."

Kanan extended his hand. The blade hissed alive, a single bright blue line pointing straight up. She had never seen it activated. She had not even been sure that Kanan had it until this rescue, though she had always known he was a Jedi since he joined her crew not so long ago.

Kanan extinguished the blade, leaving Hera's dazzled eyes blinking in the darkness before they adjusted to the half-light in the cabin. Lowering his head, he carefully placed the saber on the deck before him.

The silence stretched on and finally Hera decided to concede to Kanan the Jedi's reputation for meditation and patience as well as their mystical powers with a lightsaber.

"I saw Bruma before she left. She swore to me that she would never tell anyone how you killed that slaver."

Kanan let out a long slow breath. "I got her out of her cell when he came up from behind me with a blaster. I still had my lightsaber in my hand. I just acted, without thinking." Another long inhale and exhale. "The ricochet from my blade got him right between the eyes. I haven't done anything like that in years. It just came back. I think I was more surprised than she was."

He looked up at Hera, his eyes sad, worried. "I don't know what he did to her, but as soon as she got over the shock, she ran to the body and started kicking it. I had to almost carry her out of there."

Hera shook her head. "It's better not to ask." Kanan was an adult; he could guess the first thing a slaver would do with a pretty, young acquisition. She changed the subject.

"They missed you; they wanted to thank you before they left."

"I know, but . . . I couldn't stay," he admitted guiltily. "I . . . I had to think."

Hera's eyes drifted down to the lightsaber on the deck, ritualistically placed just so before him.

"Anything you care to share?"

He shrugged. "I haven't really worked it out. But . . . " He picked up the saber, " . . . I can't just use this, the Force, like it's just a tool to open doors or cut through a wall. Not even to free people from slavers."

Hera tilted her head. "You did good, Kanan," she encouraged. "Those families are free because of you."

"Yeah, I know, but . . . there's more to it than that." Frustrated, he looked away. "I don't know how to explain it."

"You don't have to." She got up, climbing up off the cool, hard deck plates.

Saber in hand, he hurriedly jumped to his feet. "No, I do. At least . . . to myself, I do."

She gestured with her eyes and they sat on the bunk together after he retrieved the pad from the deck.

"So talk," she encouraged after a long silence.

"If this had happened a year ago, I . . . I wouldn't have done anything. I - I would have just let them be taken as slaves. And gone on my way. Probably after getting blind drunk first."

"I don't believe that. You're a - - " She laid a hand on his shoulder.

"No, Hera." He cut her off. "I know because I've done it before." He shook his head as if cast out his words and memories from it. She withdrew, folding her hands in her lap.

"It was a job, I don't know, maybe six years ago. Seven? . . .

"Back then I was just working job to job like I was on Gorse. I learned the hard way, no place, no ship was really safe for me to stay too long. I was on one of the moons of Zedru; one of their smaller spaceports; there wasn't much work around and I got a job on a crew whose boss was skimming cargo and selling it on the side. He needed muscle to move his goods and I fit his qualifications.

"He owned a bordello in town and privileges there were part of the pay." He shrugged. "I guess I learned a lot, but the atmosphere of the place got . . . . oppressive. I guess I should have figured it out, but I didn't bother to look too closely.

"I got to be a regular with one woman, Mekar. Half the time, I didn't do anything, especially if I'd been drinking. They had a lot more toxics than just alcohol and I tried a few of those. That never went well . . . " He went silent for a moment before he regained his shameful narrative.

"One day, they showed me to Mekar's room, but it wasn't her. It was some girl; at least five years younger than me, sitting on the bed, trying to hide her body with her hand. She was terrified of me.

"I went out and found Mekar and she said that the girl was new and I was an easy customer for her to start on. They just bought the girl from her uncle; her parents had died and they needed money." Kanan stared forward, into his past and not looking back at Hera.

"I couldn't believe it. I shouted at her. How could they do that to a girl like that? That young.

"And that's when Mekar hit me. She screamed at me. What did I think she was? What did I think that any of them in that house were? She ripped her top off and showed me her slave brands. Then she hit me again. Kicked me. Threw me out." He swallowed and lowered his eyes. "I just went out and got drunk. Got fired the next day. Left.

He turned to her, his eyes shadowed. "I didn't do anything about it. I just walked out." Elbows resting on his knees, he hunched forward with the weight of his past.

"Could you have done anything? Then?"

"I don't know. I suppose not. But when I look back at it now, I'm ashamed that I didn't even think of trying. I'd just been running, hiding for so long. But just turning away from what's around me. Just getting into fights and getting drunk . . . I can't go back to that. I don't think that just surviving is good enough anymore."

"Funny, I've never seen you drink."

"I haven't had a reason to. Not since coming on board your ship." The naked emotion in his green-blue eyes lasted only for a few seconds, but it filled the room.

"Huh?"

Kanan's whole body went stiff, making her embrace of him clumsy, but the stuck with it. Did Jedi hug? she wondered. They were supposed to be cold, unemotional guardians of justice.

"You did something this time," she told him. He loosened up a little bit, one hand lightly touching her arm before she sat back again. "And there are some families who are free now because of it. No matter what you've done in the past, all you can do is go forward."

That actually got a crooked smile from him. "That sounds like something one of the Masters would have told me. Are you sure that you're not a Jedi?"

She smiled back, glad to see his sadness ebbing. "I don't think so, at least not the last time I checked. Are there any symptoms I should be looking for?"

She was rewarded with a genuine grin. "I think you're safe from all that." Then his mirth slid away back into the shadows. "Hera, I'm all for sticking it to the Empire. Nobody wants that more than me, if that's what you want to do, but if I use any of my skills to help you . . . If I use my lightsaber, I use the Force. And if I use the Force . . . I use it as Jedi."

"I understand."

"No, I'm not sure you do. Nobody is wanted more by the Empire than Jedi. The bounty alone on me would be enough to keep the Ghost going for a year with plenty left over."

Hera tilted her head as if considering it. "More like two."

"Hey!"

She put a hand on his arm and he did not tense up. "I know. It's much more dangerous. Much more dangerous. But if I'm successful at all with resisting the Empire, then it's going to get a lot more dangerous for me anyway; that just sort of goes with the territory."

He looked uncertain. Did he doubt her intentions? Or that she had thought about it, a lot, already? Possibly. But he nodded, his expression grave.

"So, if you'll be using the Force as a Jedi. Does that mean you'll be moping in your room a lot more?"

His lip curled in dismay. "I wasn't moping."

"Wearing Jedi clothes?" Hera went on casually.

"Being a Jedi doesn't require a wardrobe. And I think we agree that we shouldn't be attracting attention."

"Eating special food? Are there any religious holidays I need to know about?"

"Hera!" He sat back and his expression turned puzzled. "You're teasing me, aren't you?"

She shrugged in mock innocence. If she was going to have a Jedi helping her, she did not want a grumpy one. "A little. But I was wondering what you've been doing here all this time. Not getting drunk and passing out, I can see that."

His expression turned serious. Kanan bent forward and tapped a drawer under the bunk. It popped open and he lifted an object from it.

Hera had never seen anything like it. It looked like tech. Or art. Or something in between.

It was a cube, its edges banded with tarnished gold, its six faces lined with curves and angles.

"This is all I have left from my Master. She gave it to me the night . . . . when the Clone Wars ended . . . ."

When the Republic because the Empire and the clone troops turned on the Jedi, Hera finished in her mind.

He cupped it in both hands. "It's a Jedi holocron. I was supposed to study with it, but . . . I've hardly touched it since then." He held it up with one hand and it drifted upward in the air, a blue glow growing from inside. The faded corners separated, the glow brightening. A figure, a dark-eyed woman, her face shadowed under the hood of her long robe, appeared above it, like a hologram, but different, steady and smoother than an ordinary recording or transmission.

"My Master, Depa Billaba" Kanan said beside her. "She died saving me, so I could get away from the clones. But I haven't done her teachings any credit since then." He sighed. "I've just been . . . . getting reacquainted with them."

Hera put her arm around Kanan's waist and laid her head on his shoulder. After a pause, his hand slid over to her waist, under her lekku, a very light touch.

"Hera," he spoke softly, "if I live as a Jedi, however secretly, that means following the Jedi Code. No possessions, no attachments, no . . . . personal attachments."

"No family?"

"No."

"I don't believe that." She sat back from him. "The Jedi raised you, mentored you, gave you a place among them. If the Jedi weren't family to you, then what were they?"

"It's not the same." He shook his head before his gaze returned to the image of his Master. "You swear to never put your personal interests, in anything, or anyone, before the greater good."

Hera's eyes went to Depa Billaba's image. "Is that what she did, when she saved you?" She immediately regretted her question when she saw the grief in his eyes; she had gone too far; she did that sometimes. He drew the holocron to back to his hand, the image vanishing, the glow dying as it closed up into an inert curiosity again.

Hera took his hand. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "No. It's alright. I guess you're not wrong. The Jedi were a kind of family for me. But another thing that Jedi swear to is to let things go. It happened a long time ago. That time is gone. No attachments, even to the past."

She faded gold and dark blue cube in his hands. It was smooth and utterly unremarkable to touch. "If you're not supposed to have any attachments or possessions, then what's this?"

He looked a little offended. "It's for teaching, for meditating. It's just a tool."

That made her smile and she put both hands on it, hers covering the holocron from above, his holding it from below. "Just a tool?"

Kanan opened his mouth and then stopped, obviously remembering what he had said earlier about his lightsaber. "A Jedi tool," he told her.

"Just like you?" Hera did not really believe that, but the quip was just too good to pass up. Kanan had left himself wide open for it.

Kanan frowned and drew back, but a smirk quirked one corner of his mouth.

"I know you're not just a tool, Kanan. Even a Jedi one." She clasped his hands and the holocron again.

"You're family."

o o END o o

Disclaimer: This story first posted on tf.n on 24-Jun-2016 . All characters and the Star Wars universe belong to Disney/Lucasfilm; I am just playing in their sandbox.