UNDERSTANDING
by A.R. Davenport
*** *** Part 1
It was too early. But Kanan Jarrus was awake and sleep was not coming back. Yawning, he pushed himself up off his bunk, rummaged amongst his few personal things and pulled on the minimum of day clothes. Stepping out of his cabin, he yawned again and rubbed his eyes. Why were the lights up so early?
"Ooof!"
Toes slamming hard, painfully into something hard and pitching forward, Kanan flailed his arms, catching himself on the deck as he went down in a clumsy roll.
"Waaa-waaa-waaaah-wawawawa-waaaah!"
"Ow!" He yanked his squashed hand out from under the machine now confronting him.
"Waah-wa-wa-waaaawaawaaa-wa-wah!"
Chopper backed Kanan up into the door of the empty cabin opposite Kanan's, a silvery appendage extended threateningly.
A spark projector!? Kanan pressed his back into the closed door, pulling his head back away from the weapon. What was this droid doing with a spark projector?
Saying that Hera Sydulla's astromech was eccentric was a gross understatement. Since being introduced to the machine a few days ago after leaving Gorse, Chopper had found every opportunity to get in his way. When Hera showed him around the ship, Chopper was there, getting between them, squawking loud objections at every maintenance job that Hera planned for Kanan to do to earn his keep on her ship.
'Waa-waa-waaaa-wa-wah!' 'What? You hate flushing the fuel lines.' 'Waah-wawawaaa-waa-wah!' 'Now you want to charge the transceivers? You never do them.'
The droid obeyed Hera's commands even as it blatted out a lot of back talk which she returned when she didn't like what she heard. And during that tour, Kanan quickly learned to anticipate Chopper's moves to tread on his toes, which seemed to irritate the droid even more. But now it was threatening to do real damage.
"Hey!" He got his feet under him and pushed himself up, standing over the droid's square orange dome. "I don't know what's your defect, but Hera said I'm part of the crew now. You got a problem with that, take it up with her!"
Snap-Snap-SNAP!
"Aaaah!" Kanan leapt sideways and rolled, his thigh stinging. Scrambling to his feet, he made it around the corner of the corridor going toward the starboard gun turret. Chopper rushed after him.
Which was a mistake for Chopper. Before the droid cleared the corner, Kanan landed a solid kick to the side of its dome, knocking it backward onto the deck with a huge crash.
"Ow!" Kanan fleetingly grabbed his bare foot before diving forward. Chopper already had its upper appendages out to right itself. Kanan got his fingers under the droid's boxy feet and lifted, turning the droid completely over on its head and letting it slam back down onto its front side. Now the spark projector was pinned on the deck. Kanan jumped onto Chopper's cylindrical body and grabbed the upper appendages that were still trying to attack him, the dome completely turned around, eye sensors on him.
"WAAAH WAWAWAWAWAWAWA WAAAAAAAH!"
"Oh, no you don't!" servos squealed as Kanan hung on, holding back the snapping metal pincers.
"Aah-hem!"
They both froze.
Chopper's dome shifted, tilting its round visual sensors toward something behind Kanan's right shoulder.
Hera's green eyes stared down at them. She was fully dressed in orange and brown flight gear, her patterned green lekku dangling from the back of her helmet, her arms folded over her chest. Kanan could practically feel the vibration of her foot tapping on the deck.
He let go and jumped off, pasting a late and embarrassed smile on his face. Behind him, Chopper righted itself, whirled around and guiltily shuddered and 'waa'ed in place.
"I guess this doesn't look good," Kanan finally admitted when the silence grew too much for him.
"Well, that's one way of looking at it."
"Waaah-wawaw-waa … waawaa… wah." Chopper's defense fell flat under Hera disapproving glare.
"You're up early," he started again after another painful silence.
"Mm-hmm. We're coming out of hyperspace. Or did you forget?"
"Oh, right." He had forgotten, but it was early. "I guess I better get dressed."
"That would be a good idea." Hera's neutral look passed over his bare feet and then turned into something more critical at the astromech. "Chopper." She pointed toward the cockpit.
Shuddering the droid put its middle foot down and headed forward. Kanan anticipated Chopper's little detour and got his feet out of the way.
After a hurried dressing and wash, Kanan stepped up to the forward door, pausing to tuck his shirt in. His stomach growled. He decided he could eat later.
He deliberately walked around the navigator's station Chopper who only let out a derisive 'Wah' in his direction as he passed. Hera did not look back at him as he took the co-pilot's seat. Literally seconds later, Hera pulled down on the hyperspeed levers, smoothly collapsing the field around the ship, dropping it back into the real space. A greenish-tan globe, suspended in a brilliant backdrop of stars rapidly grew in the forward port as the Ghost's able pilot guided it into orbit.
The planet was named Zokrim. It was modestly populated, but did a fair bit of trade with nearby systems. When Hera had delivered the data that she gathered on Gorse she had been referred to a person who might pay well for a discrete transport. Kanan had not even gotten off the ship for that stop. Hera did not say anything about who wanted information to use against the Galactic Empire and Kanan did not ask. He was happy to support her cause, but that was more because he admired Hera than his dislike for the Empire. And crewing on her superb ship was the best gig he'd had in a long time. Perhaps ever.
Hera did not ask him to do anything as she guided the ship down toward the planet's largest spaceport. Chopper handled the automatic communications with the port-master as they descended into the atmosphere, gliding over craggy mountains and then lower over hills and a flat tan plain dotted with greenish lakes. Planet rotation was at midday. They were assigned to Docking Bay Eee-47. Kanan admired Hera's skill guiding the light freighter to exactly the right coordinates and then vertically descending into a landing so gentle Kanan could only be sure they were down by the view outside. Hera powered the engines down and got up.
"Keep an eye on the ship while we're out, Chop."
Kanan hastily got up to follow. He'd had no idea if he was needed, but apparently so. The door hissed open, but Hera paused and Kanan stopped before running into her.
"Oh, and Kanan, good job on flushing out the fuel lines. I've got a lot more things for you do around here when we're done with this."
Chopper's eye-sensors swiveled at them. "Wah!"
"Stay with the ship, Chop." Hera left, striding down the corridor. Kanan only paused long enough for a satisfied smirk at the droid.
He did not speak until they were outside the ship at the base of the entry ramp.
"So, what is the job?"
"Basic transport; nothing special. But our customer is supposed to want it to be very discrete, so he'll pay." She looked back fondly at the Ghost as they exited the docking bay. "It takes a lot to keep my ship in fuel and supplies."
"And I suppose harassing the Empire doesn't pay much."
Hera gave him a look, but said nothing. Kanan said nothing more that might imply that he disapproved of her cause. He didn't. He just did not treat it with the same enthusiasm that she did.
Hera's stomach growled. Kanan grinned.
"Let's get something to eat," she conceded.
The signs around the Zokrimi spaceport welcomed them to Toridim Aab and the many arrows and above-ground walkways led the throngs of travelers, droids and floaters leaving it across a busy speederway. The dominant species seemed to be basic Human, a Chiss variant with green and yellow hair and a short, snub-nosed Urgnoid that chattered and squealed in groups as they hurried among the taller sentients. On the other side of the speeder-way, a forest of floating, flashing signs promised sustenance of many varieties. Kanan looked down at Hera when she checked her comlink, but she did not ask his opinion about what he wanted to eat.
"Come on." She seemed to know where she was going and he quickened his pace.
Soon, they were sitting on the second level of a café under a clear-plas ceiling that gave them a very good view of the ships and speeders coming and going. The droid waiter brought them water, took their orders and left. Kanan decided enough time had passed since his early morning debacle.
"So, does Chopper always try to kill anyone else you try to bring onto your ship?" That would certainly explain a lot. The Ghost had four crew cabins and plenty of room that could be converted to living space if needed. It was a lot of ship for one lone pilot and one droid to manage.
The look of annoyance in Hera's green eyes was only fleeting to Kanan's relief.
"He's jealous, that's all."
"Jealous? A droid?"
"I've had him for a long time. Long before I got the ghost. He's the first part of my crew."
Sensible droid owners got their machines memory wipes when they started developing personality quirks. But a droid that had built up a good memory could be a thousand times more useful than one right out of the box.
Wait. First part of her crew?
"Chopper's going to make it a little difficult getting a second if he doesn't change his attitude."
"I know," she sighed. "He's . . . opinionated. But he can fix anything on the Ghost and he's very loyal. I was just hoping that you could be a little more mature than he is and find a way to get along." Hera placed one delicate green hand on his arm. Kanan lowered his eyes. He could hardly believe his good fortune.
She wants me to stay.
"I guess I can manage. At least if you can keep Chopper from electrocuting me. Where did he get a spark projector?"
Hera smiled. "It's original equipment. I salvaged him from a crashed Republic ship during the Clone War."
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Really? You have had him for a long time." The Clone War ended more than ten years ago, when the Empire rose. "You must have been pretty young."
Hera shrugged her narrow shoulders. "I was always good with tech. And Chopper's good back-up. He's gotten me out of a few tight spots."
I could do that.
Crewing on the Ghost with Hera was all he wanted. He did not have anywhere else special to go. It was a better ship than any tramp freighter or transport he'd worked on or piloted. And with Hera there was no incentive to get drunk and get into fights with any other transient workers. Kanan did not even like drinking much, and he was not that crazy about black eyes and bloody fists it often led to, but it was expected if he wanted to blend in with the crowd, for people like him. Rootless people who were not Jedi, or wanted by the Empire with high bounties on their heads. Hera did not ask questions about that. He nodded back to her.
She took her hand away and he regretted that moment passing. He changed the subject and asked about who they were supposed to meet.
They were to meet a dealer named Tornosk. He wanted to move some cargo to his partner in a nearby system without any unnecessary Imperial tariffs being attached to it. That was the first sting a newly annexed section of space felt from the Empire, the taxes. The Empire's footprint on Zokrim was still light, so there were plenty of people who wanted to move things before the Imperial fist tightened on their trade. But there wasn't much to say about the job past that. They did not know what Tornosk looked like or what his cargo was.
Their food came and there wasn't much more to say while they ate, bowls of savory stew and crunchy grain flats; they were quite good. They kept their eyes out for anyone looking their way, but none of the other diners scattered about the tables and tall, decorative plants paid any attention to them. But after Hera paid their bill someone approached.
He was big and broad and armored with blasters at both hips, Humanoid with very little hair and a lumpy, small head. Kanan sat up straighter, glaring a warning, but the newcomer ignored him to stand over Hera.
"You seen a ghost?"
*** *** End Part 1