Disclaimer: Star Wars Rebels belongs to (de juro) Lucas and Filoni, and (de facto) the fandom. Not to me. Sadly.
The Mission.
That was how they always referred to it, in the time that came after. His first solo mission undercover, her first shipping run without her father tagging along, the mission when they met: it was all that and more, but eventually they just started calling it The Mission. The Mission. If either said "Mission" or "The Mission," the other understood what it meant. That was all there was to it.
Caleb Dume made sure his lightsaber was well hidden in its secret pocket in his trench coat. Then he checked that the Padawan braid was tucked away in his nerftail, folded twice so as to be almost indistinguishable from the rest of his hair. Then he ran through a tally of his supplies: satchel with change of clothes, hygiene products, and datapad; comlink; mini-tool kit; rebreather; cable launcher; hand blaster - because no self-respecting freighter pilot would go without one - lightsaber again. He chewed his lower lip, inspecting his reflection in the tiny 'fresher mirror, trying to decide whether the baldric looked more convincing on this shoulder or the other one-
"Padawan! Are you done yet? You're going to the Outer Rim, not a Senate gala, for stars' sake!"
Right. Vanity was forbidden. Breathe. Focus. Caleb palmed the 'fresher door open, entering the living room and the presence of his Master, whose usually bottomless patience was clearly wearing thin. "Oh. Good. Don't worry, Caleb, you look fine. We've been undercover before. You know how to do it. You'll be alright."
They left the quarters together, Caleb a pace behind and to the left of Master Depa, in the traditional Padawan's place. He garnered a few strange looks for the getup that was so clearly non-Jedi, but nobody commented.
Non-Jedi getup...it didn't bother him as much as some Jedi, but the waistband of the trousers itched. "Why do I have to dress up now again?"
Depa sighed. "I told you last night, the ship belongs to Green Gundark. The owner probably placed hidden cameras, to make sure you don't mess with it. You'll have to be in character as soon as I drop you off at the spaceport."
Caleb stopped in his tracks. "You're dropping me off at the spaceport?! Forgive me, Master, but I can fly a speeder by-"
His Master stopped as well, turning to regard her Padawan fondly. "I know, Caleb. Jedi aren't supposed to indulge in sentiment, but...this is special for me too."
"Oh." Heat rose in his cheeks. "So...you never told me: who am I?"
Depa smiled and continued walking. Caleb followed. "Your name's Kanan Jarrus, age 22 standard." The heat rose further; he was only twenty-one, really... "You're fresh out of flight school on Vandor, but between student loans and wanting to buy a ship someday, you need some quick credits. Green Gundark is a no-questions-asked freight company. They'll hire just about any being with no bounty on his head."
"And I already submitted a job application, and they'll try me out with this ship? You're right, Master, whoever owns this company must have holocams aboard. No way they'd trust me without them."
"The Council concurs. This way." They crossed the hangar, Master Depa grabbing a key chit from the requisitions droid on the way, and climbed into the speeder. It was a four-being model, open cockpit; maybe all the two-being speeders were taken. There was a time when Master Depa would have insisted Caleb ride in the backseat, but those days were long gone, so he took shotgun. They zoomed off into the Coruscanti morning, and the consequential morning traffic.
When the speeder finally pulled to a stop in one of the crowded dropoff lanes at Senate Proxima InterSector Spaceport (Terminal Cresh), called Proxima Cresh for short, Caleb didn't get out immediately. He found he needed a moment to center himself. From now on, he wasn't Caleb Dume, Jedi Padawan to Master Depa Billaba. He was Kanan Jarrus: a novice light-freighter pilot, testing his skills for the first time.
His Master pulled him into a one-armed embrace. "May the Force be with you, Kanan."
"And with you as well, Master Jedi." He tossed her a salute and jaunty - if somewhat shaky - smile by way of a send-off, then turned and dove into the throng of beings going to and from the spaceport.
Caleb - no, Kanan - couldn't shake the feeling that somehow, some way, the Force was with him already, guiding him down an uncertain path, a hyperlane whose terminus he couldn't possibly predict.
Hera Syndulla walked forward, stumbling slightly, hands out in front of her as her father walked behind her, hands over her eyes. "Almost there, sweetie," he assured as he led her out the back door and into the "backyard," a grassless plateau used more often for landing ships or aircars than for normal backyard things.
"One...two...three...surprise!"
As Cham's orange hands flew away from her face, Hera couldn't help but gasp.
He'd said he would be getting her something special for her first shipping run alone. She suspected it was partly as an apology for the spat they'd had a couple weeks ago on the subject: she'd literally had to shout him into letting her take this run at all. But this…! She'd been expecting an astromech or some starting credits or something like that, not an entire ship!
It was a Corellian freighter, a VXC-100 by the looks of it, painted pale gray with a few artful splashes of Ryloth dust. Hera had to crane her neck to see the top of it. Its stern end was facing her; she spotted two sublight engines and a hyperdrive, as well as two smaller sublights that might have belonged to a dinghy, the rest of which was ensconced in some sort of shuttle bay. Her father pressed something into her palm: a key chit emblazoned with a string of numbers and letters in Aurebesh.
"Go on. Try her out. This'll get you into her for now; you can change the access codes later if you like."
Hera, at long last, found her voice. "How...why...this is amazing, Dad, but...what are we going to name her?"
"Up to you, Hera. She's yours. And as for how and why...I was planning to give you the Freebird, but the Freebird finally gave up the ghost last week. I sold it for scrap and bought this secondhand while I was in Lessu. I got the chance to fly her myself; she's got right good handling, but it might be nice if you could find a copilot to- Hera, what's up?"
Hera wasn't listening. Instead, she gazed at the new ship's paint job, expression rapt as an idea dawned on her. "Gave up the ghost...she's almost silver, reminds me of smoke, and didn't you say you got her used? She could've come from anywhere, and looking a little like a cloud...Gave up the ghost. Gave up the Ghost. That's what I'll call her, the Ghost."
Without warning, Hera turned and flung her arms around her father, sending him stumbling backwards. "Oof! Easy, Hera, you're a big girl, you know…" He returned the embrace. They stayed there for a moment, in the eternal Ryloth sunrise, the newly-christened Ghost standing sentinel.
The spell was broken by Kaiva sticking her head out the back door. "Wow, Dad! I was gonna say dinner's ready, but what's this?"
"Hope you made some to go for your little sister, Kai-Kai. She's gotta leave in…" Cham checked his chrono. "...merblatzu! Twenty minutes, if she wants to make Denon by the time I said she'd be there!"
Hera narrowed her eyes. "Dad! What time did you say I'd be there? How close are you cutting this exactly?!"
"Relax, Hera. It's not as close as you think. I told Surjik you'd be there by 1700 hours, four standard days from now-"
"Seventeen hundred hours?! Do you know how long it takes to get from here to the Inner Rim, even on the Corellian Run the whole way? And the traffic is awful at Denon- I'll be lucky to get there by, oh, eighteen hundred at the earliest!"
"Okay, so maybe you'll have to push the hyperdrive a bit-"
"Dad."
Cham fell silent, struck dumb by the venom in his daughter's voice. Hera shot him an icy glare, took the plastoid box of food mutely offered by her sister, and pressed the button to lower the Ghost's boarding ramp. It did, with a hiss of pistons.
"Hera…"
She stopped, one step away from the top of the ramp. Cham sounded hesitant, almost apologetic. Well, she wasn't having any of that, but...surely it wouldn't hurt to-?
"Goodbye, Dad," she said, without turning around, then disappeared into her ship, leaving Cham and Kaiva staring at the space where she'd been.
Cham had the oddest feeling that, even though Hera had promised to come visit after her first run, he wouldn't be seeing her again for a long, long time.
A/N: Yes, I'm crazy for starting another story, even though I actually have this one mostly planned out in advance. Yes, I knew I was crazy already, new story or no new story.
Also, Kaiva is the beige/green Twi'lek girl Cham picks up in the TCW episode Liberty on Ryloth. I headcanon that she is Hera's older sister by about three standard years. Caleb is twenty-one years old at the beginning of this story, meaning that Hera is seventeen and Kaiva twenty.
Reviews are never necessary, but always appreciated!