Pirates:

D52/17 BBY

Hera and Kanan held hands and all but dragged their feet as they walked behind her father to the hangar, delaying the inevitable as long as possible. Their eyes spent most of their time gazing into the others and not really looking at where they were walking, but they reached the doorway safely regardless thanks to familiarity of their path.

Cham had already climbed into his fighter and started it by the time the teenagers came to a stop beside the restored Y-Wing Kanan was taking. Pulling Hera by the hand into his space, the enamoured young male lowered his head to kiss her goodbye, his free hand coming up to cup her face lovingly. The equally besotted girl rested her free hand on his chest and eagerly kissed him back, grateful the fighter blocked her father's view of what they were doing.

When both were thoroughly breathless, Hera pulled back and smiled up at her handsome fiancé. "Be careful, love."

Kanan grinned down at her, squeezing their interlocked fingers and caressing her cheek with his other hand, not worried about the coming mission at all thanks to his previous life as a Jedi commander in the clone wars. "I'll be fine, darling," he reassured. "I'm always careful when I go out on missions. You know I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize my life with you; we've hardly even begun to live the life I see in our future."

Hera moued briefly as she tucked a loose strand of his long silky hair behind his cute, rounded Human ear. "I'm glad to hear that, but I'll still worry."

Kanan's hand slid down to wrap around her shoulders and hug her into his chest as he kissed the top of her head. "You don't need to worry, darling." He pulled back and gave her a teasing smile as he flicked his gaze towards his freighter pointedly. "It's me who should be worried, I think." His teal eyes twinkled as he added in a conspiratorial whisper, "Try not to get in too much trouble while I'm gone, okay?"

Hera followed his gaze to the Kasmiri and then looked at him with a raised eyebrow as she whispered back, "Me? Get in trouble? Never."

They both laughed softly at that, since Hera had a way of finding it without trying; like the time she'd stumbled across a squadron of stormtroopers trying to herd a wild blurrg into a waiting ship for exportation - blurrgs were valuable riding animals and sold well all across the galaxy. Hera had mowed down the troopers with the Kasmiri, flying dangerously low, so that the blurrg could escape. She'd had to repaint the freighter as soon as she got back to avoid detection by the pissed off Imperials. It was now a much more appealing grey with dark green highlights, which Hera had explained to her father was because the red and black colour scheme stood out too much and was much too memorable if anyone did happen to see it.

And she didn't particularly like it.

Kanan hadn't either, to be honest.

Still smiling, he leaned down to kiss her one more time, but was interrupted by Cham's voice yelling at them. "Enough of that already! I might not be able to see you two, but I know what you're doing! Let's go!"

She winced and blushed. "I guess you better go before Father comes over here."

"Yeah," he sighed and kissed her frowning mouth quickly one more time anyway and then climbed the ladder up into the fighter, pulling her hand with him until he absolutely had to let it go with a final squeeze. "We'll be back in a few days," he called down to Hera, before starting the fighter and pulling on his helmet.

She waved at him and watched the two fighters leave the hangar longingly, wishing that she was going with them. "Come back in one piece," she whispered, unheard over the sound of the powerful engines.

They were off to check out rumours about more missing girls and stolen spices on the other side of the continent, and were taking the fighters just in case things got interesting. The Kasmiri would have made the trip a lot more comfortable, but it wasn't equipped to fight, having just the basics in shielding and no guns. It was just a freighter after all. But that was all right, because she got to play with it while her father was away. Kanan understood her need to fly, and had immediately told her to take the Kasmiri out for a spin anytime she wanted and could get away with. It wasn't the same as a nimble starfighter by a lightyear, but it was better than being stuck on the ground.

Chopper bumped into her leg and beeped at her, making Hera abandon her watch of where the Y-Wings had disappeared in the clouds. She reached down and patted his dome absently. "Yes, Chopper, we're going for a ride in Kanan's ship. And stop calling him names. He's staying in our lives whether you like it not. No matter how many pranks you pull on him or zap him when he's not looking, you're not going to scare him off."

Chopper laughed evilly. "But it's fun. And you're MY organic, not the meatbag's."

Hera sighed and rolled her eyes, walking towards the freighter. No matter how many times she reprogrammed Chopper, he always came right back to this.

Droids weren't supposed to get jealous, but Chopper was obviously special, and most of the time, not in a good way. But he was HER droid. He'd kept her company and kept her sane when she was all alone for too many days to count.

Ever since her mother and little brother, Jacen, had died, her father had thrown himself into the war against whoever was trying to take over their planet at any given time. Hera knew he still loved her, but he just wasn't the same happy, attentive father he used to be when she was little. At least when she got to fight in the war with him, they had spent most of their time together and had something in common. Now she just felt like a possession left at home, like a treasured piece of art. Something to look at and claim ownership of, but not something you actually packed and took with you when left the house.

Thank the stars for Kanan, who makes me feel like I matter again.

Two hours later, Hera felt like she'd finally gotten enough of a flying fix to keep her happy for a few days. She'd twirled the freighter through the clouds joyfully, performing aerobatics the freighter was never really designed for, but she got everything she could out of the ship and made it better than the designers could ever have imagined it could be. Especially since she'd been tweaking with it for the last few months to help its performance capabilities.

The first time she flew for Kanan, the day of their first official date, she'd started out flying normally enough, just getting a feel for the ship, but then she'd grinned at him as his only warning and then flew up into the clouds and proceeded to scare him nearly to death. He'd gaped at her and clutched his chair for dear life as she flung the ship into a series of rolls and dives, laughing exultantly the whole time. After a minute, he'd relaxed, realizing she knew what she was doing, and started to grin before breaking into laughter as well. "Your father is an idiot for keeping you on the ground," he'd said after she finally returned to normal flight and headed for a perfect place by a lake for a picnic.

Hera had beamed at him, happy that he understood. The instant she landed the ship, she'd jumped out of her chair and attacked him for the second time that day, kissing him like a woman possessed because she was so happy. And she had to let it out somewhere, so her new fiancé had benefitted. Kanan hadn't complained in the least. It was a good half hour of passionate and exploratory kisses before they actually left the ship and had that picnic, followed by a blissfully long swim in the lake she hadn't been able to visit for much too long.

That had been the best day of her life so far.

Hera dropped back down below the clouds and headed for home, a smile of contentment on her face. As she was flying, a shuttle passed her going across her path. She absently kept an eye on it in the monitor, just out of curiosity, and was surprised when it did an abrupt about-face and started shooting at her.

Whoa! Since when did that class of shuttle get guns? And secondly, what did I do to deserve this?

It wasn't an Imperial shuttle, but a personal shuttle, Corellian made by the looks of it.

Hera flew back up into the clouds for cover and flew erratically to avoid the shots. With no way to shoot back, and not wanting to lead it to her home, she got inventive.

Flying up even higher, she somersaulted the Kasmiri over the shuttle and chased it instead. "Chopper, give me as much power to the shields as you can!" Her faithful, war-experienced astromech droid beeped in acknowledgement and plugged into the wall. Hera put on a burst of speed, pursuing the shuttle. When she was beside it, she smirked to herself and rolled the much larger freighter right over the shuttle, smacking it out of the sky like it was a pesky bug.

Gotcha, you sleemo!

The triumphant Twi'lek girl followed the shuttle as it stuttered and jolted its way down to the ground, landing with a long skidding crash that left a deep furrow in the ground. She landed the Kasmiri beside the smoking shuttle and then palmed her blaster and ran out of the freighter, pointing it at the door of the shuttle, adrenaline thrumming through her veins.

It opened a moment later, and a coughing, staggering, filthy looking Human male fell out of the ship, staring up at her in surprise when she pointed the blaster at his head. She snatched his blaster from its holster and pointing that one at him too. "Why did you try and shoot me down?" She demanded of the man who had his dirty blond hair twisted into long dreadlocks and was wearing clothes that looked like they hadn't been washed in weeks. The stench coming off of him supported her assumption.

"I was hoping you were someone else," he wheezed between coughing fits.

"Who?" Hera demanded. When he didn't look like he was going to answer, Hera pointed a blaster at his groin instead.

The man's grey eyes widened in horror and he began speaking rapidly. "A Human teenager. Goes by the name Kanan Jarrus. Flies a very rare ship just like yours but with different paint. He's got something that belongs to my Captain, and he wants it back. I thought I'd gotten lucky when I passed you and found him hiding out here."

"And what were you doing here in the first place?" she asked suspiciously.

He leered up at her, giving her a blatant up and down look before winking lasciviously. "We're just here to acquire a few of your native products, such as yourself."

Hera narrowed her eyes at him in disgust and gave him a not so gentle kick in the side, making him curl up and wheeze some more. "One more look like that, and I take off what you value most," she warned in a growl, returning him to his back with a less than gentle nudge of her boot.

The man cupped his groin protectively and stared at her with wide eyes. "Sorry, lady. You're insane, you know that? I've never seen flying like that before either."

Hera grinned maliciously at the squirming human. "Good. You remember that. Us Twi'leks aren't just going to sit here and let you blurrg droppings steal our people and our hard earned products. Oh, and tell your Captain whenever you actually see him again that you accidentally tried to shoot the wrong ship out of the sky. I don't know who you're looking for, but this is my ship and it's belonged to my family for years," she unabashedly lied. "And one more thing. Thank you for the shuttle. We could really use that."

The man looked up at her in surprise, his head shaking frantically back and forth as Hera flicked her blaster to stun and shot the filthy scumbag. Twice. Just because.

Hera left the Human in the dirt and walked into the shuttle, waving her hand at the smoke. She searched through the compartments on the walls until she found a fire extinguisher and sprayed the offending instrument panel. As soon as the smoke inside the ship cleared, she disabled its locator beacon, not wanting the rest of the sleemo's crew to show up, looking for him.

Hera glanced around at her new toy and grinned in glee. This is so much better than a freighter! And it has guns! With a little bit of tinkering, I'll have it flying again in no time.

The very pleased with herself Twi'lek walked out of the shuttle and closed the door. Giving the unconscious human another kick just for good measure on the way by, Hera walked back into the Kasmiri. Chopper was waiting for her at the door. "I recorded all of that. Just in case you want to watch yourself beat up a meatbag again," he beeped cheerfully.

Hera grinned and patted him on his dome. "You know me so well, Chop. And I'm sure Kanan would love to see it too. Wish I could show Father, but he'd have a fit if he knew I'd left the house, so that's a no go."

Hera picked up the broken shuttle with the magnetic lock on the bottom of the freighter and carted it towards home, hiding it in a large rock cluster close enough to her house that she could ride there on a blurrg in about half an hour, if the Kasmiri wasn't available to take.

Flying the rest of the way home in only a few minutes, Hera was floating in a cloud of satisfaction with her day. She'd outflown a superior ship, bested a Human pirate, and acquired a new ship that was just hers. All on her own. She wished she could say her father would be proud of her, but he'd just have a freak out.

Kanan, on the other hand, would. She just knew it.

When the pirate woke up hours later in the dark, he shivered and sat up with a groan and pressed a hand to his screaming side. That Twi'lek bitch cracked a rib!

Or worse, he thought with a grimace as he pulled his commlink from his belt. "Hey, Captain," he said, when his call was answered.

"How's the scouting trip going, Dreads?"

"Umm, it's not." And then he proceeded to lie his ass off, unwilling to admit that a native girl had bested him. "This massive ship full of giant male Twi'leks shot me out of the sky and left me for dead in the middle of nowhere. And they stole our shuttle. Can you come and get me?" Dreads whined.

The Captain cursed for a while, then started to laugh. "Guess what, Dreads. I can't track where you are. And you don't know where you are. How am I supposed to get you? Sorry, but you're on your own. Good luck." With a final laugh, the commlink went silent.

Dreads cursed and threw the commlink as hard as he could, then instantly regretted it as his ribs screamed at him for the motion. He carefully lay back down and stared up at the stars for a while, waiting for the pain in his side to settle down to bearable.

Eventually, he realized he would die out here if he didn't move. Forcing himself to his feet, he clutched his side and turned around in a circle, trying to figure out which direction he'd come from. Giving up, he picked a direction at random and started trudging.

Years later, someone would find his bones at the bottom of a cliff. Many of them were broken, including two ribs on his right side.

Kanan and Cham spent two days following horror stories from town to town. Stories about a group of filthy Humans who were scouring the towns for the prettiest girls and stealing them in the dead of night from their homes and killing everyone else that lived there. Most of the dead females showed obvious signs of bruising and of being taken savagely. The pirates were also raiding shops for the most expensive of the native spices grown on Ryloth. Products that didn't take up a lot of space, but paid well on other worlds.

The more or less justice-minded males were now flying their fighters in the middle of the night, in a search pattern near the latest town attacked, looking for the roughly diamond shaped ship that the pirates were said to be flying. They were hoping the murdering thieves would have landed somewhere close, and they could catch them unawares while they slept. They couldn't just attack the ship, either, assuming that the stolen girls were still on it. This was going to have to be a stealth mission; a perfect opportunity for Kanan to use his Jedi skills without consequences.

Kanan was looking forward to it, missing the days when he was almost constantly using his skills during the war with the Separatists.

Spotting a gleam of silver parked near a river, the ex Jedi's heart sped up slightly with excitement at a possible sighting of his prey. Circling around, he inspected the diamond shaped ship and recognized it right away. It's the same one that the pirates had flown away in on Takodana! The pirates who killed Kasmir over a game of sabacc. Bastards.

Kanan still had the bag of loot from that game, but he'd never had the heart to open it. He hadn't needed the credits, and it brought back bad memories.

Now he had the chance to avenge his friend, he was going to take it, even if vengeance wasn't the Jedi way.

Kanan called Cham and gave him the coordinates of his location after he landed within a reasonable walking distance away from the pirate ship.

A lightly snarling orange skinned Twi'lek General landed beside him fifteen minutes later, looking about ready to rip apart the pirates with his bare hands and sharply pointed teeth. Kanan was glad the man had never looked at him like that and hoped he never gave him a reason to do so.

After coming up with a plan of attack, they walked towards their quarry.

Kanan approached the ship quietly, with Cham following behind, noting that it seemed to be asleep for the night, like they'd hoped, no lights showing from the transparisteel areas at the front. Stopping at the cargo bay door under the bubble of the cockpit, Kanan closed his eyes and reached towards it, letting the Force swirl through him, he felt the opening mechanism and triggered it. He opened his eyes with a small smile when Cham clapped him on the back.

They walked silently up the ramp, blasters drawn, ready for anything.

What they found was basically expected, but it still hurt to see.

A dozen girls, bound and gagged, were in the cargo hold, all passed out, hopefully just drugged or exhausted. Other than that, they appeared unhurt. Which makes sense, I guess. You get more money for an untouched slave than a used and abused one.

They also found at least twenty crates of expensive spices, which Kanan was sure the owners would be ecstatic to get back.

Leaving the girls for the moment, since they weren't in immediate danger, Kanan followed his Force senses up the ladder, through the empty cockpit, and into the hallway of crew quarters. With a wave of his hand, he opened each door and methodically stunned the sleeping occupants of every bunk, leaving Cham to follow in his wake to tie them up. After that was done, Kanan swept the ship with his senses again and followed them further down the hallway, going through another door and past a ladder that led up to the top gun turret.

Kanan opened the last door between himself and his target. Calmly striding into the common room, he pointed his blaster at the pirate Captain. The man who'd murdered Kasmir in cold blood.

The grey haired male looked up blearily from where his head had been resting on a dejarik table, a bottle of alcohol falling from surprised fingers and breaking on the floor as he jerked upright at the sight of Kanan. "You!" he said.

Kanan looked at the wasted man with cold eyes, his fingers tightening on his blaster and thumb stroking over the switch to change the setting to deadly as opposed to stun, the need for revenge riding him hard. But something held him back. Whether it was just years of ingrained training, or an unwillingness to lower himself to the same level as the one in front of him, he didn't know.

But then the true reason struck him. "Yes, me. You killed my friend. I would execute you now for what you did, but that is too nice a way out for you. Instead, I'll let the relatives of the girls that you stole and the Twi'leks that you murdered have you. I'm sure whatever justice they give you will be well deserved."

The aging pirate fumbled for his blaster, but was stunned for his efforts, falling back into a slump over the table.

Not wanting to touch the pirate in case the urge to beat him up a bit took over, Kanan just stared at the unconscious man until Cham walked into the room a minute later and glared daggers at the unconscious Human. "I would have just killed him," he said.

Kanan looked at Cham for a moment before heading towards the front of the ship. "I seriously thought about it, although outright murder is not the Jedi way, even if I'm not exactly a Jedi anymore. Then I realized there were people out there who had even more of a claim on his life than I did. They deserve the chance to see him die in whatever fashion they deem appropriate."

Cham grunted and patted Kanan on the shoulder. "You are wise beyond your years, young Jedi." Kanan opened his mouth to protest, but Cham stopped him. "No, you are a Jedi. And you will always be a Jedi. At least to Hera and I. I've worked with the Jedi in the past, and you are just as noble as them, if not more so. You deserve the title."

Kanan smiled and nodded once in gratitude as he sat in the pilot's chair and started the ship. It was time to take the girls back home to whatever families they had left. And the pirates to their justice.

While Kanan flew, Cham untied all the girls, most of them trying to wake up groggily as he did so. He threw the pirates down in the cargo hold, and after stripping the bunks of their filthy covers, gently put the drugged girls in the bunks instead.

Cham took great pleasure in tossing the pirate captain down the ladder last, right after slapping him hard a few times so he was awake to feel the landing.

Then he stunned the despicable being again. Twice. Just because.