Hera's Close Call:
D121/1 BBY, Yavin 4
Hera left the Ghost at a brisk but not rushed looking walk. Whatever the problems were, they would still be there even if she didn't run. Her running days were over for a while. She was on flying only missions from now on.
She aimed for the crowd of people gathered around one of the new X-Wings. "What's the problem?" she asked as people made way for her.
Wedge peered down at her from inside the cockpit. "It's the ignition system, we think. We can't get it to start."
Hera raised a brow. "Did you let one of the astromechs look at it? You know that's what they're designed for."
Wedge shook his head, looking embarrassed, as well as the crowd of pilots and mechanics all assembled around doing nothing useful, shuffling their feet and clearing their throats.
Hera restrained the urge to roll her eyes at them and called Chopper on her wrist comm. "Chop, we have a glitchy X-Wing. Can you come talk to it?"
"Sure, Hera," he beeped in reply. "On route."
"Thanks, Chopper." Hera cleared her throat pointedly and the crowd quickly dispersed, going back to their jobs. "You might as well come down from there, Wedge. Just wait here until Chopper arrives so he knows which one to fix."
"Sure, General," he said, already climbing down the ladder.
Hera continued on her way to the Command Center. She found Mothma and Generals Dodonna and Willard in a heated discussion. "You called for me, Senator?" Hera said as she walked into the room.
Mon looked up, a faint smile of greeting interrupting her worried look. "Good, you're here, General. We just received a distress call from one of our supply ships. They accidentally crossed paths with a Star Destroyer as they were both stopping to calculate a hyperspace jump. They're stalling as long as they can but the Imperial Captain is being very stubborn and wants to do an inspection of the cargo hold. That would be alright if they weren't carrying spare parts for our very distinctive A-Wings. Our conundrum is that they're only a ten minute jump away. If we send fighters to help them, the Empire will have a good idea about how close our base is to the location of the freighter. If we don't send help, we'll lose our men and our supplies. What is your opinion, General Syndulla?"
Hera didn't even have to think about it. "We send help. I'll take a couple squadrons of X-Wings and take out the star destroyer. If we target the communications array first, we should be able to prevent them from transmitting their location."
Mothma relaxed slightly as Hera came up with a plan that she could live with. She glanced at the other two Generals and saw them nodding in agreement as well. "Do it," she said to Hera.
Hera nodded once. "Call Phoenix and Gold squadron for me," she called over her shoulder as she left the room at a jog. Apparently there were circumstances that gave her enough incentive to go faster than a walk. Her expanding stomach made it a bit more awkward, but still doable.
An alarm sounded through the base as she jogged down the hallways. "Phoenix and Gold squadrons, to your X-Wings," she heard over the loudspeaker. "General Syndulla will brief you in the air."
Hera smiled a little to herself, adrenaline already coursing through her. She would never get tired of flying the new fighter and testing her skills against the enemy. "Chop, you still in that X-Wing?" she called over her comm.
"Yes," he beeped.
"You find a problem with it?"
"Not yet. The fraging computer on this one is being stupid," he beeped back with a very annoyed tone.
"Can you bypass it and jumpstart the thing?" she huffed as she was running up to the ladder of said X-Wing. All around her, pilots were jumping into their X-Wings and astromechs were flying into place with the pleasant rumble of starting engines sounding in her ears.
The X-Wing starting was her answer as well as a triumphant beep from Chopper. Hera climbed the ladder and grabbed the helmet out of the air that some nice mechanic threw her.
As she was about to climb into the cockpit, Hera felt an instant sense of foreboding. She was going to ignore it but then she also felt the distinctive press of Kanan's hand on her shoulder, pulling her backwards and away from the X-Wing. She stumbled a little as she had one foot already in the air, but caught herself. Hera looked up at Chopper wide eyed. "Chopper, turn it off and move into a different one. There's something seriously wrong with this one."
"But I just..."
Hera cut him off sharply. "Not now, Chop. Just do as I say. I'll explain later." Hera gave him a steely eyed look that he instantly obeyed with only a little bit of a sulk showing in his attitude.
Hera climbed back down the ladder and grabbed the arm of the nearest mechanic. "I want that X-Wing taken apart and thoroughly investigated before anyone flies it again."
The mechanic gave her a quick salute. "Yes, General."
Hera booted it over to the X-Wing that Chopper had already placed himself in. He started it for her while she climbed the ladder. Hera strapped herself into the pilot's chair and she was off the ground in a moment, Phoenix squadron falling into formation behind her and Gold squadron behind them. The astromechs jumped them into hyperspace and they were off.
While the star fighters travelled at lightspeed, Hera explained the mission to her squadrons. Then she closed the channel so only Chopper could hear her. "I'm sorry for getting cross with you earlier, Chopper. There was something... I got this feeling of dread and then I could swear I felt Kanan pulling me away from the X-Wing."
"Kanan?" Chopper beeped mournfully.
"Yes, Kanan," Hera replied just as sadly. "It doesn't really make any sense but I've always trusted Kanan before and I'm not going to stop now."
She didn't have any more time to reflect on the strange occurrence because Chopper beeped that they would arrive in five seconds. The X-Wings dropped out of hyperspace and Hera instantly assessed the situation.
"Wedge and Mart you're on the communications array. Gold squadron; shield generators. Everyone else, make them miserable and take care of the TIEs that are bound to show up." She said all of that while she zipped towards the freighter that was being towed towards one of the hangars at the bottom of the star destroyer. She aimed a proton torpedoe at the tractor beam generator and smiled in satisfaction as it scored a direct hit and the freighter was released. Their supply ship quickly moved away from the battle and jumped to hyperspace.
Five minutes later, it was over. The star destroyer blew up spectacularly from all the proton torpedoes that bombarded it. Despite the cringeworthyness of the job, they picked off all the escape pods and TIE fighters until there were no survivors left to tell the Empire about how quickly Rebel fighters showed up on the scene. Hera considered the mission a sad success. All of her fighters had survived with only a few having to withdraw from the battle with minor damages to their fighters, and they saved the transport. She couldn't really ask for more than that.
Hera slumped in her seat as they flew back through hyperspace, the adrenaline rush leaving her feeling drained in the aftermath. She put a hand on her rounded stomach. "I hope you never have to fight the battles I have, my little miracle," she whispered to her baby. "Flying is the best, but right now it comes with a price I wish I didn't have to pay."
Hera's squadrons landed on Yavin 4 to many rounds of congratulations and cheers. She smiled and endured the praise from her fellow pilots and rebels, but her eyes were trained on the X-Wing that she could see in the distance. While she was gone, the mechanics had been inspired to literally take it apart as she could see pieces of the inner workings lying neatly on a tarp off to the side. Hera excused herself from Zeb, Kallus, Rex, and Wolffe's stifling presence as they surrounded her and Chopper, congratulating them on another successful mission.
She heard Rex ask "what's up with her?" behind her and she could just imagine Zeb's shrug of confusion, but Hera left them anyway, absently noticing that they followed her.
Hera stopped by the faulty X-Wing and stared up at the mechanic who was buried deep in the engines of the machine. "Have you found anything yet?" she called.
He stuck his head out with a serious look on his grease covered face. "Yah, I have. And it's not good. Whoever or whatever assembled this one mixed up two of the wires connected to the hyperdrive. The way it is right now, it would have exploded when you jumped into hyperspace. I'm not sure if it's really possible, but it seems like the onboard computer was trying to save the pilots by not letting the X-Wing start.
Hera stared at the mechanic, stunned. Kanan had saved her life. Again.
"Wait, isn't that the X-Wing that I saw you almost take off in?" Zeb asked.
"Yes," Chopper beeped for Hera as she still seemed to be unable to speak.
"Karabast," Zeb muttered under his breath.
"That was too close, Hera," Rex commented with a worried look on his sun weathered face.
"What made you take a different X-Wing?" Kallus asked curiously, for he'd also seen her change her mind only a step away from getting into the cockpit.
"Kanan," Hera breathed. "Kanan stopped me," she said with a slowly widening smile and tears building in her eyes. "He is still with me, in some fashion." She turned and wandered slowly towards the temple to give her report to Command, feeling happier than she had in months.
The guys stared at each other wide eyed for a minute. "Karabast," Zeb finally said again. "I knew the whole Force thing was real, but this is more than I ever thought I would believe, but somehow I do."
Kallus and the clones nodded in agreement. They'd all seen Jedi do some amazing things, but Kanan kind of not being entirely dead topped the list.
The mechanic looked from Hera's retreating form to the guys standing around by the X-Wing in confusion. "I'm clearly missing something here."
Kallus glanced up at the man. "Don't worry about it. I'm assuming you can fix the fighter?"
The mechanic nodded. "I already did, but I'm finecombing the entire thing just to make sure."
Kallus nodded. "That's good to hear. Keep up the great work."
The mechanic beamed. "Thank you, Sir." He looked down at Chopper. "You want to help me double check everything?"
Chopper beeped an eager affirmative. He had some words to exchange with the persnickity computer. He was going to find out why it couldn't just have told him what the problem was in the first place. Stupid, kriffing computers. They annoyed him to no end sometimes. Especially the nav computer on the Ghost. They'd been having a battle of wills for years. Not that he'd ever tell Hera. He would hate for her to think that her precious ship was less than perfect.