The next day Sabine dragged Ezra to the common room where she had multiple items spread on the table.
Shoving the boy into the seat next to her, she faced him with a smile.
"So we're going to be working on understanding the basics of droid code." Ezra nodded. "Now, you've been around Chopper long enough to at least understand the tone in which he speak, right?" Ezra nodded again "Good. That's important!" Sabine took hold of a recorder on the table and played a clip. "It's much easier to learn the code if you have a understanding in how it sounds like and how it's emphasized." She click it on, and the recorder gave a few short beeps. "This combination is 'Hello', or a form of greeting. But.." She pressed it again, "If it gives a drone and higher beeps, it's referring to possession." She looked at Ezra, and frowned at his confused face.
Ezra for the most part was excited and listening closely...before the pitches and tones. Silently he blinked before he gave an awkward laugh.
"Sorry...I uh... how is this the basics again?"
Sabine froze and brought her head to be propped up by the table. "Ooooh. My bad. Here, let's just do this." She reached to a book and a recorder and handed them to Ezra. "The pamphlet has the code letters and basic phrases. For each lesson there's a recording to listen to." She flipped to the last pages and pointed to the page. "And that's the final test for the intro. You can write the code and listen to the code trivia. Any questions you can ask me or Hera."
Ezra nodded and turned to the beginning again. There he saw a chart of letters, numbers, phrases, and a key table. Looking it over quickly, Ezra smiled to himself thinking, "It looks simple enough."
That night Ezra sat up in his bunk reading the dashes and dots of the code. After each phrases he listened to the recording, compared it to the text, and repeated the recording until he was sure he'd remember it for a while. This continued for a few hours before Zeb got fed up and tossed a book at the boy, exclaiming 'Go to bed you book rat!'
So grabbing a blanket with him, he left for the cockpit with all his stuff.
He sat in the co-pilot seat bundled in the cover and propped his feet on the dash as he reopened his book.
Come the morning, Hera got up early to check the stats. When she entered the cockpit she came to she sight of Ezra bundled up on the seat with a book covering his face. And upon closer inspection she realized I was one of Sabine's language books.
Shaking her head at the boy she headed to the cupboard to prepare a caffeinated beverage, all the while thinking to herself.
"So I guess Ezra is Sabine's apprentice too? Heh..." And behind her came a yawn and a grumble.
"Neh...?"
Hera turned around with two cups of drinks and sat down in her pilot seat facing Ezra, who was half awake by then. Carefully placing the drink into his hand she waited for him to take a drink before asking anything.
"So Ezra, you're learning droid code?" Ezra gave a sleepy nod and yawned as he said, "I just started yesterday. Sabine thought it'd be useful."
Hera sighed and thought about their grumpy droid. 'That's a dangerous game...'
"I guess that's okay...shes just teaching you the basics right?"
"Yeah...why?"
Hera smiled, "Oh no, it's nothing."
Just then Chopper rolled in droning loudly. Ezra whipped his head in his direction and furrowed his brows in concentration.
"He...he said something..." He flipped through the pages and shook his head. "But...I don't know..."
At that Hera laughed nervously, "Y-yeah...he did." Then she shot a glare at the droid with the message of 'Watch your language around him!', expressed with her eyes.
HEyyyy!~
I hope you liked this chapter! I've introduced Ezra to the material and the next chapter I'll have him practice understanding the grammar and words, because you don't just translate a language like Russian into your alphabet and expect to understand it.
So I'll try to get Chopper to interact some more in the next by saying phrases and such...
But you know him, he's a troll...and obviously tsundere... xD
RxR please!~