Author's Note: Hey there! Been awhile!
There will be a monster author's note at the end.
I'd love if you'd stick around to read it after the story!
This story can be viewed as a companion piece to Family History, taking place somewhere a few weeks after Chapter 3.
Better known as the Wedge Incident.
Mid season 3, shortly before Sabine leaves for Krownest
Matchmaker Matchmaker
"Ugh. This is going to be the worst night of my life," Sabine grumbled.
Ezra laughed. "Oh come on. It won't be that bad."
"Shut it, Jedi. I don't want to do this."
"Yeah, but that's because you never want to have anything resembling fun."
She glared at him. Sure enough that cocky grin she was expecting was slathered all over his dumb face. Sometimes she wanted to strangle that predictability. "Let's get this over with," she mumbled one last time. "To the mess hall. For Teen Night." She managed to instill the word teen with as much poison as was humanly possible. As if it was going to kill her.
Which it might. Or more likely someone else.
"Easy there Sabine," Ezra said. "Who knows? It may even be fun."
"What are you even supposed to do at a Teen Night?" She spread her arms in an expansive gesture. "What even is that?"
"I don't know you'll have to ask Catney. This was her idea."
The invitations had gone out yesterday, popping up on the datapads of all the younger Chopper Base personnel. Sabine had looked at it, scoffed, and gone back to her painting. Fat chance she was going to a social function. And then Ezra told Hera about it.
And Hera made it mandatory.
And now they were on their way to Teen Night.
"And another thing," Sabine said as they walked across the coral plateau. "I'm not even really a teen anymore. I'm nineteen!"
"I still hear the word teen in there," Ezra said shrugging. "Right at the end." She punched him for good measure. "Ow! Ow!" he said rubbing his arm. "I looked over the list. There are a couple twenty-year-olds on it too. I think Catney just invited all the younger members of Phoneix Squadron. Come on, Sabine. Just try and have some fun.
They walked up to the security checkpoint before entering the main base structure. Newly promoted Chief of Security Garazeb Orrelios sat on watch, his favorite music blaring obnoxiously in the background. Chopper patrolled back and forth like a dutiful Kath Hound.
"He-heh. On your way to kiddie night?" Zeb asked smirking.
Sabine rolled her eyes. "Shut it, Zeb. Just be glad there's not an old and single night. Hera'd give you order to attend."
"Rude. And there was a singles mixer last week. For the adults. Hera lets the adults make their own decisions."
Sabine felt her face turn red. "I'll show you an…"
"Come on, Sabine," Ezra said gently nudging her forward. "Sooner we go, the sooner we can tell Hera we went."
Zeb laughed long and hard as they left him behind. What they didn't see was Zeb whispering to Chopper after they left.
For what it was worth, Ezra was actually looking forward to the gathering. He was usually so busy with duties aboard the Ghost or training with Kanan that he didn't know an awful lot of personnel around Chopper Base. A chance to just be a normal teen for a few hours might actually be fun. He was planning on thanking Hera for the mandatory break.
He'd also thank her for making Sabine come because the chances of her coming otherwise approached zero. As far as Ezra was concerned, his Mandalorian friend could use a bit of fun in her life that didn't involve explosives.
The door to the commissary slid open. Loud music even more obnoxious than Zeb's boomed through the room. Around twenty-five people stood in small clusters of the usual social cliques. Pilots huddled in one corner, support staff in another, and a third 'popular' group dominating the middle of the room.
"Oh there's the last two!" a voice chirped over a microphone. Ezra had to look around to even spot Catney. The short Rodian girl was almost invisible in the crowd. She worked down in munitions and Ezra had only met her once or twice but he only knew her well enough to know that if there was a polar opposite of Sabine she was it.
Catney must have realized that no one could see her, so she jumped onto a table. "I want to thank everyone for coming to our first Teen Night!"
One guy cheered awkwardly. When no one else said anything, he sheepishly tried to disappear into the crowd.
"We've got snacks and drinks and music and it's just going to be amazing getting to know all of you!" Catney practically squealed. Ezra didn't have to look at Sabine to know that every muscle in her body had gone rigid. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.
"And….!" Catney continued barely able to contain her excitement, "I've even got an activity planned in a little bit! So have some fun and you'll hear from me soon."
"I can hardly wait," Sabine grumbled sitting in a chair with a huff.
Ezra pulled out a chair and sat beside her. "Can you at least try to have some fun?"
She gestured around the room. "I don't know any of these people. They don't know me." Her eyes locked onto the group of pilots. "Okay, I know Wedge and Hobbie. I'm sure we could invite them over and have so much fun talking about old times."
Ezra cringed. It had only been a few weeks since the Wedge Incident, and Ezra wasn't sure he'd even made eye contact with the pilot since Chopper had crashed Wedge and Sabine's disastrous date. Phoenix Squadron's new hotshot was giving the Ghost Crew a wide berth these days, and Ezra couldn't exactly blame him.
"Yeah, we should probably keep our distance from them," he agreed. "Lucky for us all, I came prepared for just such an emergency." He tossed a sabaac deck onto the table.
Sabine suddenly brightened and sat up. "Now we're talking."
Ezra crossed his arms smugly. "See I know how to take care of you."
She rolled her eyes but grabbed the deck and started shuffling.
Sabine looked first at her cards, then at the pile of credits she'd earned thus far, and finally at her last standing opponent, a gangly kid from Maintenance named Travick. He flinched, barely, but she saw it. That sealed it.
"I stand," she said playfully.
A drop of sweat dripped down his face and he stared at his cards. "I'll draw," he mumbled. The dealer passed him a card. His face fell at once and he threw his cards down, having bombed out. Sabine smiled and revealed her cards totaling a measly seventeen.
He'd taken the bait like a sucker.
Travick cursed awkwardly as Sabine collected the pool of credits. Sure, gambling was against regs, but she wasn't about to turn down a haul like this. This would supplement her regular stipend nicely for the next few months.
"See, told you she would win. Sabine always wins at everything!" Everyone turned to stare at Dormin. Sabine wasn't sure the kid was even fourteen. Didn't stop him from somehow always being present when Sabine was. Everywhere she went it was if she had her own personal cheerleader. Ezra had been bad enough when he was younger, but this kid was insufferable.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Not so bad, Ms. Wren. See? Told you'd have fun."
"Yeah, yeah," she said brushing Ezra's hand off and deciding she would ignore Dormin like she always did "You don't have to…"
"Okay, it's time for our activity!" Catney's chipper voice came over the microphone.
An audible groan ran through the group and Sabine couldn't help but smile. Maybe these people weren't as bad as she thought.
"We're going to all take a matchmaker test!"
There was an awkward silence. "What's that?" someone asked.
Catney seemed dumbfounded. "Oh come on! We'll all take a questionnaire. Then we'll let a droid analyze it and pair us up. You know. Make matches! It'll be fun and maybe you'll get to meet someone new and special!"
"This is the worst night ever," Sabine said crossing her arms.
Ezra laughed and rubbed the back of his head. "It's just a bit of awkward fun. What's the worst that could happen?"
Sabine bit her lip. "I can think of a lot of ways this turns out bad. Look, Ezra, I have a reputation to keep around here. I can't go filling out surveys about my favorite colors and how I like to take long walks under Atollon's moons or some other such nonsense." She glanced at Ezra and had a pretty good guess how he'd want this matchmaker crap to turn out.
That would be really awkward.
For her.
But especially for Ezra.
Better not to get his hopes up.
"Not gonna do it," she declared. To her surprise, Ezra actually looked relieved. Maybe he had more sense than she gave him credit for.
"What? No, you have to!" a voice said beside her.
"Sabine, you've got to!" another said.
"Yeah the rest of us are going to fill it out."
"It's just for fun.
Sabine crossed her arms defiantly. She wasn't about to give into peer pressure.
A half-hour later Sabine transmitted the finished questionnaire to Catney and tossed the datapad aside. "What a load of bantha feces. How are questions like that going to match us with someone and determine whether or not we're compatible?"
Ezra just shrugged, still deep in his questionnaire. "It's for fun mostly but I guess the idea behind it is sound. Like attracts like and all." He eyed her coolly. Relax."
"What are we supposed to do when we're done?" Wedge asked from a couple tables away.
"Transmit them to my datapad," Catney said.
"Aren't you done yet," Sabine grumbled
"Hey, I'm trying to take this seriously." He gave her a look and winked. "I'm discovering the love of my life tonight."
"Sure you are loth-rat. I bet Kanan is going be thrilled and give you the whole attachment lecture again isn't it."
"To which I just politely remind him of Hera and sneak out of the room. There. Done." He made an exaggerated gesture of hitting transmit and gave Sabine one of his smile's.
She laughed and punched him in the arm.
"That's the last of them!" Catney said tapping her own pad. "Okay, I'll need a droid to crunch these real quick. Does anyone have one they can call?" She looked at Ezra and Sabine. "You guys have an astromech, right? Can you guys get him to…"
"No," three people answered in unison. Sabine looked at Ezra, knowing he was the second. But who was the…
"No," Wedge repeated again. "No. No. No. Not Chopper ever."
Everyone in the room stared at Wedge and the silence was thick enough to short out a vibroblade.
"No," he said again.
"Right. Umm… Praton can you get me your droids comm frequency then? Thanks. No objections to his droid right, haha?" Catney laughed awkwardly. "Ahem. Well, I'll be back in just a few minutes then with the results!"
"I can hardly wait," Sabine grumbled under her breath.
Chopper was a patient droid. When Zeb had assigned him the mission of, "Go mess with the kids," he knew he only had one chance. Once Hera was called and he was ordered back to the Ghost, it would be over.
And so Chopper decided to wait for his one chance. He'd been in the hallway for over an hour patched into the security grid and watching through the cameras. When Catney had suggested that Chopper be used to crunch the results of the questionnaire, he knew his time had come. He didn't worry that Praton's droid was ultimately selected. Praton's R4-D1 was a push-over and knew that Chopper was not to be denied.
Chopper found Deewun right as he received the transmission from Catney. Chopper extended his electro-shock prod and made his demands clear. Transmit the questionnaires to he would never see Praton again. Chopper didn't specify if he was threatening Deewun or Praton himself. The other droid knew it was best to assume both.
Deewun didn't refuse and readlily gave them to Chopper.
Chopper thanked him by saying something vulgar that Hera wouldn't have approved of and gave the droid a shock just for good measure. Deewun scurried off into the dark.
As he looked through the matchmaking questions, a plan began to form in Chopper's mind. Yes, there was only one proper way to go about this. First, he crunched the results and matched everyone properly. Information was power, and the more information Chopper had on these fleshbags, the more likely he could bend them to his will.
Second, he changed the results.
All of them.
He chuckled to himself, pleased. This was some of his finest work. He transmitted the results back to Catney and opened a comm to Zeb. The big guy was going to want to watch this on the cams.
"I've got the results!" Catney practically sang into the microphone.
Well, this ought to be interesting, Ezra thought. He couldn't decide if he wanted to be matched up with Sabine or if that would be more drama than it was worth. He wasn't really put much stock into a silly questionnaire, but it would be worth a good laugh. Hopefully.
Sabine sat back down at the table beside him and passed him a fresh drink. He nodded and turned back to Catney.
"Okay! Who's first?!"
"Do the Jedi!" a girl called out.
"Who was that?" Ezra whispered to Sabine.
"Tereyn from Flight Ops."
"Great." The girl had an obvious crush on Ezra. Everyone at Chopper Base knew it and, clearly, she was hoping to be matched with the Jedi. Ezra put his face between his hands. Maybe this had been a lousy idea…
"Let's see here… OH! Well, I didn't expect this. Ezra Bridger is matched with Wedge Antilles!"
"Krriiiiffff!" Tereyn from Flight Ops screamed into the deathly silence.
All eyes turned to either Wedge or Ezra.
Then came the wave of raucous laughter.
Ezra knew his face had turned an unholy color of red. Didn't this test take into account… You know, preferences? He stole a glance at Wedge. The pilot didn't look all that happy either, despite the awkward congratulations his friends were giving him.
"Stupid quiz," Ezra said shaking his head.
Sabine laughed and put an arm around him. "Awww… I'm sure you two will be very happy together. Cutest couple on Atollon."
He gave her a look, but she just kept laughing.
"No way this is right," Wedge yelled out. "It was that… That damn astromech! That thing is a menace."
One of Wedge's friends tried to calm him down. "What are you…?"
"It was Chopper. It had to be him. That little murder bot has it out for me. I swear."
Everyone stared at him. Dormin shrugged and looked up at Wedge. "That's why we got Praton's droid to do it, remember?"
"Oh, ho ho. Is THAT what you think?" Wedge asked, eyes practically popping out of their sockets."You said his name aloud. That little devil machine hears everything, I swear…"
"AAAnd someone's a little paranoid," Catney said, desperately trying to regain control of the room "Who's neeeeext!?"
"Sabine Wren!" Ezra called out.
Sabine leaned back and glared at him. He only smiled sweetly back at her.
Catney smiled brightly "Sabine gets matched with… Dormin!"
"Yess!" the little guy practical shouted at the top of his lungs. "I got patched with the Manda-lor-eee-an," he practically sang as he danced around the room."
Ezra took great pleasure in watching the color drain from Sabine's face. "Could have been worse. Could have been Wedge like me."
"Are you kidding me? Wedge knows to keep his distance now. This only validates Dormin's fan club stalking."
"Hey," Ezra said with his most charming wink. "Maybe he'll be really charming when you get to know him. And you know once you get past the buck teeth and...
Sabine cut him off with a flurry of Mandalorian cursing.
"Okay, my turn! I'm matched to… Umm." Catney's eyes widened in shock. "No one specific and we'll just move right on down the list to Larent…"
Catney proceeded to go through the entire list, only to discover that each and every person in the room had been matched to someone that they were absolutely not suited to. Mortal enemies, pilots to competing ground crews, wallflowers to socialites. It was as if someone had gone down the list and engineered it to be as socially distressing as possible to a group of fragile young adults.
"That's… all of it." Catney said, enthusiasm thoroughly curbed by the chaos. "Oh, there's a note on the end. It says 'I'm watching you, Wedge.' Huh, I wonder what that means?"
Wedge practically sputtered. "It told you it was that…"
Ezra and Sabine practically ran for the door, before anyone could associate them with Chopper. They'de figure it out soon enough. The next few days around the base were going to be hell.
In the hall, Ezra scratched the back of his head. "How… How did Chopper even..."
"I have no idea. I thought after we painted him pink last time that, he would stay out of our business." Sabine shook her head and Ezra imagined that if Chopper were present right now, Hera would never even find the pieces of the droid.
"At least he had the wisdom not to show his face," Ezra mused. "Wedge is going to turn into a paranoid maniac at this rate." He shrugged and turned down the hall to leave the base. Sabine fell into step beside him quietly.
"You know, now that we're gone," Sabine said, "I'm slightly disappointed we didn't get to see the real results. You know. Just out of curiosity."
He couldn't help it. Much as he tried, the self-control just wasn't in him tonight. "You're looking at him. Right here." He gave his best smug grin.
Sabine raised an eyebrow and stared at him for a moment.
Then they both cracked up laughing.
Zeb laughed his head off as he watched the resulting chaos from the security room.
"Chopper, you monster. Look at poor Wedge…"
He'd heard about the Wedge incident from a few weeks back. Rumors had flown around base faster than a nexu on the hunt and Zeb had managed to drag the whole story out of Ezra.
Poor Wedge.
Zeb cracked up laughing again.
He wiped the tears away and took a sip of his drink.
Then Sabine got paired with her devoted little runt and Zeb spewed his drink all over the monitor.
He pulled out his comm. "Chopper. You rust bucket that was a work of art. She'd break that toothpick in half if she so much as looked at him."
He listened as the droid warbled back triumphantly.
"You know I can barely understand you. I got like two words out of that..."
More indignant binary.
"Fine send it my way. I'll take a look."
A file came up on his monitor as Chopper sent it his way. It was the results of the questionnaire. The real ones.
"Why would I care about… Okay, I'm looking, I'm looking."
May as well see who the kids were matched with…
Oh. So that's what Chopper was after.
Ezra Bridger and Sabine Wren.
Matched together.
"Hoo boy, Chopper I'm starting to think you actually did everyone a favor. Sabine might have taken the poor guy's head off."
He scratched his head. Honestly, he hadn't expected them to actually be matched together. It was all just a dumb game, but you never know how…
"What? No, don't delete the file. Are you crazy?"
A slow grin spread across Zeb's face from ear to ear.
"Send it to Kanan and Hera."
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this fun little fic. ddaulton94 gave me this prompt for fun. So big thanks to him for the idea AND for letting me know the back half wasn't funny enough. Had to rewrite it to bring it up to speed!
Now some side business.
If you're one of my readers and haven't seen me lately, it's because I've been busy at work on my OWN fiction. Starting this last week I've begun publishing it on my own website, as well as several others. Unfortunately, fanfiction is a little screwy about letting you post links.
Those of you that have followed me here and supported me? I'd love if you read my own stuff.
It's a sci-fi web serial entitled:
After Moses
Want a sneak peek? Check out the intro below!
We always thought AI was going to be the death of us, rise up and take over everything. At least that's what the prophets of the day always claimed. Maybe they would have. But Moses came first.
No one even knew where Moses came from. By the time we realized he was there, he was already in every network on the planet. He'd already absorbed all there was of human knowledge, read the Bible and knew that God created the heavens and the earth. Also read Nietzsche and knew that man had killed God.
He knew where we were headed, saw it as clearly as we did. That's why he picked his name, Moses, because he was going to lead us to a new promised land.
Over the next century he revolutionized technology. Helped us colonize the solar system. Put humans all the way out to the moons of Saturn. He promised that soon we'd spread amongst the stars.
And then one day Moses was gone. A simple error message displayed on every terminal in the solar system. No one understood Moses in the first place, so no one understood what happened to him. Even worse, we couldn't support our new way of life. The economy collapsed overnight. Earth tore itself apart in wars. And the colonies?
The colonies were left to themselves, to dwindle as the technology Moses gave them slowly failed.
The dream of the stars died.
But we lived on.
Alexei Dorokhov
Lithium Prospector on Ganymede
Died 64 AM
If this sounds like something you'd enjoy or you just want to support me, you can do it in one of two ways.
1) Go to wattpad and read, vote, and comment on my story. Help me get found over there. I can't outright give you the link because of fanfiction but if you take this next bit and add the www and .com before the first slash then you should get there no problem. (wattpad /story/176583471-after-moses)
Or just go to wattpad and search for After Moses. It should come up.
2) If you don't want to mess with wattpad (I know having a billion accounts sucks) head over to my site. You can just use Aftermoses and add a .com to get there.
Huge thank you to my readers over the last year. When I say I wouldn't be doing this without fanfiction, I'm not exaggerating at all. So many people were so very supportive, starting with Acceptable Outcomes and all through the other stories and collections I wrote that I just kept plugging on. Trying to get better and hone my craft.
I appreciate all the support and comments over the last year.
Thanks!
(Final note. ddaulton94 is doing some original work to. He's on wattpad as well and has his own site. Visit tlmoga and add a .com to the end. Then find him on wattpad to support him there too!)