Next thing Athena knew, they were back with the fleet. A giant Imperial fighter carrier now amongst their ranks. Ahsoka landed the fighter in the wings on the carrier and they were soon met with the sight of the Ghost and a shuttle just next to that.
"You go with the Ghost crew, I need to talk with Commander Sato about that incident," Ahsoka said.
The Padawan followed her Master out of the ship. The two gave a final nod before temporarily parting ways.
Athena was impressed by the whole carrier. It was huge. Athena didn't even want to ask how the opening on the front of the carriers looked bare - completely open to the voice of space. It flipped her brain out.
The girl blinked a few times and ran to the ship she called home. She quickly ascended the ladder and soon joined a part of her family who congregated in the common room. Zeb, Sabine, Ezra, and Rae sat around the room and casually chatted.
They greeted the girl and they began to exchange stories.
Hera, Kanan, and a new twi'lek entered the common room a good while later - surprised to see the additional girl.
"Athena cut off an Inquisitor's foot!" Ezra cheered to the adults as they walked into the room.
Hera and Kanan were wide-eyed with surprise and shock.
"Athena Jarrus, you what?!" Hera yelled, holding her one hand up in anger as the other hand held a mug of caf.
"Jarrus?" the orange male twi'lek was wide-eyed. He looked to the male Jedi. "You have a daughter?"
Kanan sputtered and stuttered as his feet tripped up underneath him. "No - I -ah!" his mug of caf fell out of his hands.
Kanan sighed and glared at his sister as she soon suspended the brown liquid in the air, casually leaning against the side of the couch with a smirk on her face. He picked up his mug and its lid and sighed.
"Athena, please put the caf back in my mug," Kanan frowned.
Athena smiled and brought the stream of the warm drink into the mug. Kanan covered it with the lid.
Athena looked to Hera, "Hi, Mom. How was the mission?"
"Mom?" Cham looked to his daughter with shock. "You and the Jedi had a child and never told me?"
"She's his sister," Hera sighed, looking at her father. "She jokingly calls me 'Mom' or 'Space Mom'."
"You are a Jedi too?" Cham looked to the girl. "Hera did not mention you."
"Because she's added ten years to my age," Hera sighed and looked at Athena. "So what happened with the Inquisitors? Did you really cut one's foot off?"
She nodded. "The Fifth Brother's. Don't worry, neither one got killed. Just knocked out."
Cham laughed and pulled the nerve-wracked Kanan into a joyful side-hug, "You had a little sister who can take on an Inquisitor? Why didn't you tell me about her?"
"Dad, how did you think she was mine and Kanan's kid? She doesn't even look part twi'lek," Hera gestured to the girl.
"Well, some human-twi'lek mixes can look more human than twi'lek. And she has the name of an Earth Goddess as well!" Cham looked to Kanan, holding a hand on the human's shoulder. "Your family must know about Earth Gods too, no? Her name is that of a Goddess. You must be very cultured."
"Sir, I didn't know I had a sister until a couple months ago," Kanan admitted. "I don't know anything about Earth Gods."
Cham looked to Athena, "Ah, young Jarrus, tell me: do you know of any Earth Gods? Especially the Goddess you share a name with?"
To the twi'lek's surprise, the others in the crew began to burst into laughter. Even the girl with a blonde ponytail seemed to chuckle.
Hera placed a hand on her father's shoulder and gestured her mug towards the girl, "Father, let me introduce you to the Rebellion's first and only Earthling Rebel - Athena Jarrus."
"Straight from the source, sir," Athena greeted.
The twi'leks eyes went wide and he had a large smile of surprise on his face, "You are serious? You are from the planet?"
"Should have seen the poor girl when she first laid eyes on another species. She set eyes on me and almost had a heart-attack," Hera commented with a smile.
Athena had an embarrassed smile, "Hey, I was in shock. My bad."
"No, no, it would be expected for an Earthling-" the liberator of Ryloth paused and turned to Kanan. "Wait, so does that mean you are from Earth too?"
"No, our mother was trying to find refuge from the Empire and gave birth to her on Earth before she was unfortunately killed," Kanan explained. "I was born in this galaxy sixteen years prior to her and raised by the Jedi on Coruscant."
"We found her after we accidentally wound up on Earth for a minute and she tried to mug us," Ezra added, gesturing to Athena. "Then we kidnapped her and brought her to this galaxy. That's when we found out she was a Jarrus and Jedi."
Cham nodded as he smiled. He looked to the Earthling, "So, I imagine you know lots about your Gods? My wife and I studied a great deal about them, even naming Hera here after the child-goddess."
Athena said. "Uh, Hera was the queen of the gods and the goddess of marriage and children. That might have been a translation issue there"
Cham blinked a few times in surprise, "Oh...I didn't realize. That would make a lot more sense now that you say it."
Athena shrugged, "I know a lot about Greek mythology because I read a whole series about them."
"Greek? Mythology?" Cham was confused. "I thought they were the gods your people worshiped?"
Athena shook her head, "Nah, that religion's been dead for about a millennia and a half. We have a bunch of other religions on my planet now."
"Oh," Cham was surprised at this new information. "So, the Goddess Athena is the goddess of fire and warfare, correct?"
"It would make sense," Sabine joked.
Athena rolled her eyes at Sabine and looked to Cham. "Close. Athena was the goddess of intelligence, warfare, and craftsmanship."
"This Athena here is sorta a goddess on one planet, though," Zeb joked. "Little Goddess Inferna!"
"What?" Cham was confused once more.
Hera let out a deep sigh, "She fought a volcano and got mistaken as a planet's goddess in the process."
"Fought a volcano?" Cham questioned.
Kanan let out a heavy sigh and bowed his head, "Yeah. She fought a volcano."
"And won," Athena reminded with a cocky smile.
"And won?" Cham questioned.
"And won." Hera sighed.
"That's what that mural behind you guys is about," Sabine gestured to the Goddess Inferna painting not too far from them.
Cham looked at the painting behind him of a girl controlling fiery lava all around her with a phoenix in the background before turning to Kanan.
"Your sister can do that?"
"She can do weird Jedi stuff," Kanan sighed. "Probably because of the whole Earth thing."
Athena took off her obsidian ring and made it float above her right palm, soon making it glow a bright orange as it formed a little ball of lava. Her hair turned bright red and glowed along with her eyes. "I can do stuff like this. It's really helpful since I don't have my lightsaber built yet."
"No lava in the ship," Hera reminded the girl for what seemed to be a one-hundredth time.
Athena rolled her eyes and the ball of lava turned back into an obsidian ring, putting it on her finger once more.
"The kid is pretty darn useful," Zeb chuckled. "Inquisitors barely stand a chance."
"Well, Fifth Brother can't stand at all now," Rae joked.
Cham was gobsmacked. He turned to his daughter, "Are you telling me this child can literally control lava and fire?"
"Unfortunately," Hera said, glaring at the girl now.
He looked to the girl, "Say, how much exactly do you know about your gods? I would love to hear the stories straight from the source."
Athena's face froze and the group could see the face of disgust and fear as she remembered back to the stories of the Greek Gods. She specifically remembered the relationship of the Goddess Hera and the God Zeus and cringed.
"I- I feel as if it's best for all of our mental health that I do not tell you about them," Athena shivered.
"Ah, surely it cannot be so bad!" Cham assured.
"The Goddess Hera was married to the cheating God Zeus, who happened to also be her brother, and that's not even the worst thing I can tell you," Athena said.
Hera and Cham blinked a few times in horror and shared a look with each other.
"Did you know that?" Hera questioned her father. "The goddess I was named after was married to her brother?"
"No. No, I did not."
"What about the Goddess Athena in that Greek religion?" Kanan tried to bring the topic back to a lighter subject.
"That goddess basically popped out of Zeus's head fully grown and in full armor. It was like the only time the guy didn't cheat and get another woman pregnant," Athena said. "Half of Greek Mythology, I swear, is about how Zeus impregnated a lot of women; and I mean a lot."
"Why do you Earthlings have stories like that?" Ezra scrunched his nose in disgust.
"It was thousands of years ago, not my fault!" Athena exasperated. "And I am not responsible for my idiotic people! They all do their own thing!"
"I think we should get off this topic," Kanan palmed his face.
A thought popped into her head as Athena seemed to remember something. "Oh, Kanan! I just thought of something ironic! The Greek Goddess Athena's sacred bird was an owl, just like how our mom's ghost showed up as an owl."
"Wait, they have symbolic birds?" Hera questioned, hoping to learn something positive about her own name. "What's the Goddess Hera's bird?"
"A peacock." Athena simply answered.
"A pea - WHAT?" Hera, Cham, and Kanan were wide-eyed.
"Wait, no!" Athena was wide-eyed. "It has two meanings on my planet!"
The others were howling with laughter at this point as Athena desperately tried to explain that the colorful bird was not a dirty word.
"Okay, do you possibly have any written texts about your culture?" Cham asked, already feeling defeated with the new knowledge of the name he had given his daughter.
"Uh...no," Athena said. "I kinda left all my school books on Earth, and those were all written in English, not Aurebesh."
"You have another language?" Cham questioned with intrigue.
"We have thousands," Athena said. "Surprisingly spoken Basic and English, my native language, are the exact same, but the writing systems are completely different."
"Ah, so your people speak this language?"
"Some. My planet, as I said, has thousands of languages. It all depends on where you are on the planet for a language to be spoken."
"Okay, so trying to find out something positive about your planet," Cham started. "Is there anything interesting about your planet? What really defines your people?"
Athena blanked out for a moment.
"Come on, there must be a good thing about Earth! It is a wondrous planet from what I've heard!" Cham implored.
"It is," Rae said. "I felt absolutely terrible my entire time there, but the flora is absolutely beautiful - same with the cities. They have very beautiful cities and pretty natural scenes."
Kanan confirmed, "Yeah, I gotta say it was a very nice looking planet. With so little technology in comparison to us, they really do make the best out of their planet."
Athena let out a sigh of relief as she had the help of Rae and Kanan.
"What about your people? What are your people like?" Cham asked.
Athena and Rae shared a blank face.
"You wanna tell him?" Athena asked.
"No." Rae shook her head.
"I don't wanna tell him," Athena said. "The poor man already heard about the Ancient Greeks, no need to tell him about modern Americans and ruin his day."
"Okay, what about just three things you can describe your people with?" Hera suggested.
"Drugs, making more humans, and killing other humans," Athena threw her hands up. "That is what really defines our entire history on that planet."
"Are you serious?" Kanan glared at the girl.
"You went to Vegas, you should know better, Kanan," Rae said. "She's right."
"You said Las Vegas was known for just gambling," Kanan looked to Athena.
"I didn't tell you about the strippers," Athena said. "Vegas is known for strippers, alcohol, and gambling."
Kanan sighed and slumped his shoulders, "I really hate you, you know that?"
"You love me," Athena had a grin on her face as she looked to her brother.
Cham had his hand over his face as he shook his head, "Are you telling me that the majestic planet I once studied the ancient stories consists of nothing but-"
"It's a pretty planet," Athena gave a nervous smile.
"Hey, what about Cleveland? The town you came from? What was it known for?" Zeb offered.
"Baseball, crappy football, and crime," Athena shrugged. "Oh! And we got a cool lake!"
"See? You got a nice lake!" Hera shrugged.
"I almost got drowned in it several times."
"Please be quiet," Hera implored. "Please."
Cham chuckled, "Ah, I see Earthlings have some humor."
"Yeah, we got a lot of humor," Athena chuckled.
"Too much sometimes," Kanan rolled his eyes.
"You have the worst Dad jokes, you be quiet!" Athena pointed at her brother.
"So, you two are basically the parents of this little family?" Cham looked to Kanan.
Kanan stuttered some more, not really sure how to explain himself.
"They're our Space Parents!" Ezra cheered.
"Space Mom and Dad!" Athena joined Ezra.
"Both of you be quiet," Hera hushed.
"No, no, I find it quite adorable," Cham had a smile of pride as he looked to his daughter. "You are raising some fine fighters in this little family of yours."
Hera couldn't help but smile a little at that.
"So, does this mean I am Space Grandpa?" Cham looked to the crew.
Athena and Ezra, sharing the same singular brain cell, threw up their arms, and smiled as they cheered: "Space Grandpa!"
Just as Hera was about to speak, her droid came barrelling into the room - robotic arms flailing. His beeping was near unintelligible.
"What do you mean the Emperor is giving a speech? Why do we care?" Kanan questioned.
"Fine, let's just watch it," Hera rolled her eyes. She turned to Sabine who sat by the Dejarik table. "Turn on the Imperial Broadcast channel, please."
Soon, the hologram on the Dejarik table lit up the room with a blue-hue.
They turned to see Emperor Palpatine standing there, dressed in white and gold garments. His face looked like that of an average politician - an old guy who physically looked like he could hide nothing, but everyone else knew better.
Athena squinted her eyes with confusion at the hologram of the Emperor, crossing her arms as she leaned her side against the couch. Kanan stood just next to her. He could see the skepticism in her eyes.
"He doesn't look like that," Athena mumbled. "He's edited or something."
"Probably," Hera said. "They want to make him look as good as possible."
"People of our glorious Empire, I come today to speak before you today because I hold a great grievance in my heart," the Emperor started. "As you know, these terrorists who call themselves 'rebels' have been plaguing our lives for much time now. Now, one particular 'rebel' has done far too much damage to our brave soldiers who protect us from anarchy."
"Is he talking about us today?" Cham asked, chuckling.
Their hearts dropped when the image in front of them soon displayed another human. A 2D image of a girl with glowing orange eyes and a halo of lava above her head, glowing in a dark room. The plate on her chest and on her forearms even glowed a dim red. Her hair was in a fiery glow.
Palpatine's voice spoke as the picture was still displayed, "This may be one of the most dangerous Jedi our people have ever been plagued with. She is called by many 'Athena Jarrus', some 'Inferna', and few 'Syla'. She has murdered multiple Imperial soldiers in a brutal manner."
Hera covered her mouth in surprise. The Emperor had never come out to talk about just one specific rebel. Some Governors and Senators have talked about their crew, yes, but never the Emperor himself. She never thought they would get so high.
Another photo appeared on the hologram projection. The streets of Bakunyuu behind the girl with teal eyes and no shoes, a blue cloak on her shoulders. Fear in her eyes. It was the moment she first laid eyes on the Inquisitors. She stood there frozen in the picture like a scared little girl in the rain.
"Do not be fooled by her young and unassuming appearance. Though she appears to be a young girl, she is far closer to a monster who preys on the unassuming," Palpatine spoke. "She has murdered many of the Empire's finest protectors with no mercy. She has been seen working with rebels in the Outer Rim Territories and claims to be a Jedi Padawan."
"I- I've never seen the Emperor make an announcement about just one rebel," Ezra's worried eyes looked to Hera.
Kanan looked down to see his sister still staring at the hologram with seriousness in her eyes. Her breathing was slow and deliberate, eyes unyielding.
The image of the Emperor soon reappeared, holding his hands out as he seemed to make a plea to the people, "I implore all citizens to beware of this dangerous monster. As your Emperor, I beseech each and every Imperial citizen do their part and report any sightings of this creature. If your report leads to her arrest, I, the Emperor himself, will grant you nearly any wish your heart desires. I will spare no expense to lock this monster and protect the citizens of this glorious Empire."
"He just put out a giant bounty on my head," Athena's serious eyes stared at the man under the cloak of deceit. "Any wish your heart desires from the Emperor himself, eh?"
Hera was speechless. She gulped and worriedly looked over to Athena, who did not seem to fully understand what this meant for her just yet.
"I wish you all the best of luck and much safety," the Emperor nodded. "Long live the Empire."
And the hologram disappeared.
The crew couldn't speak for the first few moments. Never, ever, did they think the Emperor himself would come out to speak about any of them. Never did they think they would come far enough to where the Emperor himself would put a personal and nearly limitless bounty on their heads.
"That - that makes you the most wanted person in the galaxy," Cham was even surprised.
"Ironic. I'm a wanted man but was never a wanted child," Athena joked.
"Athena, this is serious," Sabine's eyes looked to the girl with fear. "I-I've never seen this-"
"How- how exactly dangerous is this girl that the Emperor himself recognizes her?" Cham looked at his daughter. "She is hardly a-"
"Apparently dangerous enough," Hera shook her head as she let out a shaky breath. Her eyes looked to the young teen.
"The Sith Lord is no doubtedly going to be sent out for her," Kanan shivered.
"He killed my mother, he's not going to get the pleasure of killing one of us twice," Athena looked to her brother. "I won't let it happen."
"They never said for you to be killed, just locked away," Rae gulped, looking at her friend. "That's not good."
"What do you mean?" Athena was confused, looking to Rae. "I'm wanted alive. Isn't that better?"
"There are far worse things than death, Athena," they rarely heard Kanan's voice go so serious and solemn. "And the Emperor himself just ordered that for you."
Athena sighed, looking back to her brother, "If the Emperor is this concerned about me-"
"This changed the entire game, Athena," Kanan sighed. "You gotta realize this."
Athena paused, a small frown of uncertainty on her lips. She looked around to her family who all had fearful expressions on their faces. She could feel the dread hang in the air now.
The girl was mostly silent for the rest of the day. She couldn't help but shake the feeling of dread. Her entire family was so worried about her now.
The girl stood amongst her family as Cham was about to depart, telling them about reports from all over Ryloth after they witnessed the explosion of the Imperial light cruiser. He pulled Hera aside for a moment and they hugged just before he left. Athena couldn't hear what the two were saying but could tell Hera had made amends with her father.
Athena looked up to her brother and could sense all the fear he had inside him. She'd never seen the fearless leader be so unnerved. The war Athena was fighting was no longer just Stormtroopers and Inquisitors. Now, she had the Emperor himself order her capture to the entire galaxy.
The rebel's fears of Athena possibly becoming their enemy skyrocketed after that. If the Emperor himself wants her captured, there was no telling how long they could hold off the Empire's advances to kidnap her.
