It was a day like any other, and all across Lothal teenagers were suffering under the mandate of parental figures everywhere.
"I'm going to work on an art project. Don't wait up for me," Sabine Wren called over her shoulder and jumped on a speeder bike.
"Okay," Hera Syndulla replied. "Call me when you get there."
"I'm gonna grab a fizz pop at Old Jho's," Ezra said.
Kanan didn't look up. "Enjoy. Call me when you get there."
"I'm going home. See you later, Kallus." Swain gathered her coat and got ready to leave the Imperial Complex.
"Call me when you get there," Kallus said.
Every parent, everywhere, every day: call me when you get there.
So when Hera and Kanan did not receive a call from Sabine, their hackles were up.
"Maybe she doesn't have reception," Zeb suggested.
"Where in the city would she not have reception?" Kanan asked.
"Maybe she's painting something underground?"
"Not likely." Hera drummed her fingers. "Love, what do you think?"
"I think it's time." Kanan stood and stretched. "Waffles are in the conservator, Zeb. We'll be back."
"You're going out to look for her?" Zeb asked.
"Just to make sure she's not lying in a ditch." Hera grabbed the keys for their other speeder bike and tossed them to Kanan. "We'll be back."
…
Kanan drove while Hera gave Sabine one last chance to pick up her comlink.
"She's still not answering." Hera terminated the comm. "Where should we look first?"
"Maybe the art supply store where she buys paints?" Kanan suggested. "It might take a while to get there. What's with this traffic?"
"I don't know. It's like they —."
A wail of sirens cut her off and a police speeder pulled behind them.
"I'm not speeding!" Kanan protested.
"Just pull over and we'll brazen it out," Hera said and tightened her grip on his waist. She looked over her shoulder to get a look at the officer and tensed. "Kanan!"
"What?"
"It's Agent Kallus. And he looks very proud of himself."
"Seriously?" Kanan looked for himself and caught a full view of Kallus' smirk. "Is he by himself? Where's his trainee?"
"Who cares? We should be able to lose him."
Kanan shook his head. "Hang on. I have a plan."
Kallus took his sweet time getting out of the speeder, and practically swaggered when he approached the bike. "Good evening, rebels."
"Hey Kallus, I didn't know you worked night shifts. No Swain tonight?"
"I do some things independently. But I wish she could have been here to see me bring you in."
"Yeah, you caught us." Kanan shrugged. "But before you slap on the binders, can you answer just one question?"
Kallus' smirk expanded to a wolffish grin. "What would that be?"
"Where is Swain right now?"
The grin faltered.
"It's night, so she's obviously at home," Kallus scoffed.
Hera caught on. "Do you know that for sure though? Did she call you when she got there?"
"I asked her to text me but she's very busy; I'm sure she just overlooked it."
"You could call her and make sure," Kanan suggested. "I mean, look at this traffic. Anything could have happened."
Kallus' face turned crimson. "If you or your crew laid a finger on her —."
"Nope, no, nothing like that. We're out here looking for Sabine because she didn't call us."
"Then are you insinuating she purposely didn't return my texts?"
"Of course not," Hera replied. "She seems like a good girl."
"But just to be sure…" Kanan wheedled.
"Observe. My trainee is a different breed than your hellions," Kallus hissed as he dialed Swain's frequency.
"Hi Kallus," Oddly enough there was no background noise at all in Swain's comm.
"Good evening," Kallus said. "I was just checking on you. You said you were stopping by the market on your way home and I never received a text, so I worried."
"I'm sorry, I must have forgotten; it won't happen again. I'm fine, just hanging out at home watching TV."
The apparently silent TV? All three parental BS detectors went off immediately.
"I see. Enjoy your evening, I'll speak to you later." Kallus keyed off the comm and stared at his unit in disbelief. "She lied to me."
"Sure sounds like it," Kanan agreed.
Kallus hadn't even heard him. "She LIED to me," he repeated, his face turning redder with every word. "Hannah Rowan Swain!"
Wouldn't want to be you, Hannah Rowan Swain, Hera thought.
Kallus wheeled on both the rebels. "Do you know where they are?"
"Not yet."
"Get in the speeder. We're going to find out."
…
"Wherever they went, they went together," Kallus said, still steaming from being lied to.
Hera was much calmer. "We need to pin down what was attractive that they snuck out. If we figure that out, we'll know where they are."
"You were a teenage girl once. Where do they go?"
"Depends on the girl. Kallus, what are Swain's hobbies?"
"She, well … she enjoys sparring." He knew that wasn't what Hera was getting at, but it was all he had at the moment. "She likes those candles she buys at the mall."
"Hmm, they wouldn't sneak out for candles. What about drawing or painting? Does she like to dance?"
"I'm not sure about dancing, but she likes music."
"It's a start. They might have gone to see a band or a deejay, but we're going to have to narrow it down. What artists does she like?"
"You think I listen to her music?"
"I know you hear it every time she gets control of the radio." Kanan threw out some of Sabine's favorite artists. "Lua Dipa? Zillo? Doja Tooka?"
"No, her favorite is somebody else. It's a lot of pop and breakup songs, and the artist is a human woman. Taylor something."
Kanan and Hera shared a look. "Taylor Zwift."
"That's it." He gauged the rebels' faces. "I assume that means something to you?"
"According to Sabine, Taylor Zwift is on the tour of a lifetime. She's singing songs from all her previous albums, and all her fans are dying to see the show," Hera explained. "Sabine included. Kanan?"
"Way ahead of you." Kanan scrolled through his comlink. "You're never going to believe where tonight's concert is."
There was no way that was a coincidence. "I just don't understand how Swain fits into this. Those tickets are expensive, and hard to get. Sabine said general admission sold out in thirty seconds."
Kallus shouted a curse word and Kanan and Hera jumped.
"What?"
"Swain isn't general admission," Kallus said through gritted teeth. "Members of the Imperial military get early access on ticket sales."
"She has money like that?"
"She doesn't need money when she has Grandpa wrapped around her little finger." Kallus was positively steaming. "He gave her a gift card to a ticket site for her birthday. "
"All Sabine had to do was buy the second ticket off her," Hera sighed.
"I'm going to kill her," Kallus growled.
"First we've gotta find them in the crowd of thousands," Kanan muttered. "How hard can that be?"
…
Meanwhile, in the largest stadium on Lothal, two girls were on the edge of their seats.
Swain and Sabine had just found their spots after ducking into a refresher to take Kallus' comm, and they were pumped. Sure, they were in the rafters, but they didn't care. They had a direct sight line to the stage and Taylor Zwift would be out any minute!
"What do you think she's going to sing?" Sabine asked.
"I don't know, but it's going to be awesome!" Swain adjusted her colorful jacket. They had both dressed like Taylor through the years for the concert, and it was no small feat. Sabine had carefully planned their outfits so they would compliment one another but still look unique. "Thanks for sharing your clothes."
"Thank you for getting the tickets. Next time you see your grandpa, tell him he's the coolest."
Swain was just about to agree that Grandpa Yularen was definitely the coolest, but just then the stage lights turned on and Taylor Zwift appeared.
Sabine and Swain jumped to their feet to dance with the rest of the crowd, unaware of the parental threat closing in.
…
"There's the stadium." Kallus grit his teeth as they came upon far thicker traffic. "Look for a parking space; we'll get farther on foot."
Kanan found one and they parked the speeder.
"The show's already started so they're probably already inside." Hera tented her eyes to better see the stadium.
Kallus led the way. "I can get us in."
Kanan and Hera looked at each other and shrugged. Hey, since when did they get an ISB escort? They followed Kallus all the way to the stadium gates.
"Agent Kallus, Imperial Security Bureau," He said to the security guard. "I need to find someone in the venue."
The guard looked him up and down. "Okay, Agent Kallus. You can stand with the other ISB agents," he said and pointed to a crowd outside the gates.
Kallus blinked. "Excuse me, I am a –."
"Look, you're not the first guy to pull this scheme. No ticket, no entry. Simple as that."
A tide of red started to rise from Kallus' collar but luckily, Hera grabbed him before he lost his mind. She and Kanan dragged him away.
"I can't believe I got stopped by a rent-a-cop!" Kallus raged.
"And your teenage daughter. Don't forget your teenage daughter," Kanan added unhelpfully.
"Love!" Hera exclaimed.
Kallus shook off the humiliation. "We need a ticket. Surely someone's still selling one."
Kanan raised an eyebrow. "You want to buy off a scalper?"
"Do you see another option?"
"Scalpers aren't an option. They probably already sold out of tickets, and if they have any left we can't afford them." Kallus forged ahead and Kanan shrugged. "Your paycheck, not mine."
They found the first scalper half a block from the gate: a human man wearing a purple shirt who was holding a ticket aloft and shouting. "Best seat in the house, come and get it!"
Hera did a double take. "Lando?"
"Why hello, Captain Hera." Lando smiled warmly, which immediately set Kanan and Kallus on edge. "What can I do for you?"
"I'm sure you remember that you owe me a favor."
"Of course I do."
"Excellent." She held out her hand, palm up. "I need that ticket."
"The ticket?" Lando repeated, clutching it to his chest in scandal. "That's more than just a favor, Captain. These are seats to Taylor Zwift's once in a lifetime tour! Their value can't be expressed by simple credits."
"In that case it should be easy to hand it over."
"Well just a minute—."
"Mister!" A pre-teen girl raced up to Lando, her hands full of credits. "I got the money. Do you still have the ticket?"
"As a matter of fact I do." Lando handed her the ticket with a flourish. "Enjoy the show."
"Thank you!" The girl squealed and ran away with the ticket clutched in her hands.
"Sorry, Hera. You snooze, you lose." Lando shrugged and went on his way.
Hera shot him with a death glare. "Anybody else have ideas?"
It went downhill from there. First Kallus tried calling a friend who had bought herself and her three daughters tickets for another show, on the hope they would pass a cursory inspection even if they were for a different venue. That led to the friend laughing in his face, Kallus hanging up on her, and then the apparent "Andressa" calling him back to continue laughing in his face.
"Do you have any idea how long I waited on the ticket site?" she asked. "And you didn't see the look on my girls' faces when I told them we were going. No way am I taking that away from them so you can be a helicopter parent."
"I'm not a helicopter parent!" Kallus protested.
"Keep telling yourself that, Kallus," she said and hung up.
Kallus sighed and put his comm away. "Any luck on the HoloNet?"
"No dice," Kanan reported. "Do you know a good forger?"
"We don't need a forger," Hera said. "They can't stay in the stadium forever. All we have to do is wait until they leave, and then we strike."
"That sounds like the best idea so far. How long is this show, anyway?"
…
One and a half hours into the three hour show, Sabine and Swain were scream-singing "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" when they noticed the pyrotechnics display warming up.
"Take my picture!" Sabine cried, and posed just in time for Swain to snap a holo of her with the fireworks in the background.
"I'll send it to you." Swain opened her messaging app to text the picture to Sabine when she noticed a new message from … Agent Divo?
She opened it and her stomach dropped.
Sabine noticed. "What is it?"
"Kallus knows we're here. He tried to get Agent Divo's tickets so he could come in and bust us."
"Osik," Sabine whispered. "You don't think Kanan and Hera …?" She didn't bother to finish the query. She already knew the answer.
"The good news is he didn't get the tickets, so we're good for the rest of the show." Swain put her comm away.
"What about after the show?"
"Don't worry, I have a plan."
…
"Sabine said she would be out late and to go to bed without her, so she was probably planning to crash at Swain's place," Kanan said. He, Hera, and Kallus had retreated back to the speeder to wait there. "Kallus, you know where that is?"
"I'll do you one better." Kallus brandished a key card. "I can actually get us inside this time."
"Should we just go there and wait for them?" Kanan asked.
Hera shook her head. "We don't have any proof unless we catch them in the middle of their sleepover. Besides, I want to see how far they take this."
It became immediately obvious when the show was over. One moment they were sitting in the speeder making awkward conversation, and the next they were swarmed by concertgoers trying to leave the venue.
Hera started up the engine and Kallus told her Swain's address. They were so busy trying to navigate the crush of people that they completely missed the two girls running down the street like their cowboy boots were on fire.
…
"That's her apartment on the second floor," Kallus said forty-five minutes later as they pulled up outside Swain's apartment complex.
"Looks like all the lights are off," Kanan noticed.
"They must be tired from lying to us." Kallus opened the speeder door before Hera even came to a complete stop and stalked toward the apartment.
Kanan and Hera followed. "I've never seen him so angry before," she whispered.
"I know. I almost feel bad for them." His gaze hardened when he thought of Sabine's blatant lies. "Almost."
Kallus held a finger to his lips for silence, and then swiped the keycard and opened the door.
Swain's apartment was silent as well as dark, with just enough streetlight filtering in for them to make out the furniture in the small living area.
There was no one on the couch.
"They must be on the floor in her room," Kallus whispered. "Follow me."
They tiptoed through the living room and kitchen to a closed door. Kallus took hold of the knob and mouthed. Three…two…
He ripped it open with an almighty "Hannah Rowan Swain!"
But the lights weren't on. There were no girls camped out on the floor.
It was just Swain. In her bed.
"What the – Kallus?!" She yelped, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "What are you doing in my apartment?"
"I, I, I, uh…" Kallus stammered while desperately trying to make sense of the situation.
"Oh my gods, it's Colonel Yularen, isn't it? Is he okay?!" She spotted Kanan and Hera and reached for a drawer in her nightstand. "Behind you!"
"It's fine!" Kallus held out a hand to stop her before she pulled a blaster. "Grandpa is alright and they're with me."
"That still doesn't explain why you brought the rebels into my apartment."
Kallus changed the subject. "What did you do tonight, young lady?"
"What did I — I went to the market for groceries, got home, watched Cruise Ship Killers, and went to bed. What does that have to do with anything?"
What did it? Kallus looked at Kanan and Hera. They didn't have any proof, and Swain was sleeping.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. Just go back to sleep and pretend this was a bad dream."
In a burst of paternal energy he walked across the room to tuck her in, and when he lifted the covers Kanan and Hera spotted a flash of sequins.
"Gotcha!" Kanan reached out with the force and dragged a sequin-clad Sabine out from under the bed.
Sabine shrieked and tried to grab hold of the carpet. "Mom! Dad! I can explain!"
Hera crossed her arms. "Can you, Sabine? I want to hear this."
To her credit, Swain didn't instantly abandon her concert buddy. "It was a non-partisan cultural experience."
"Yeah! I have to get inspiration for my art somewhere, and I can't pass up a chance to learn from pyrotechnics experts."
"I'm sure your art was the main reason you wanted to go to the Taylor Zwift concert you'd been gushing about for weeks," Hera quipped.
"And you." Kallus glared down at Swain. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I didn't do anything wrong!"
"You fraternized with rebels and you lied to my face."
"Because you would have stopped me. You would have said –." She launched into an imitation of Kallus' voice – "A pop concert is a waste of time and energy which could be better spent. Stay home and study instead."
Kallus blinked. Sure enough, she had nailed it.
Sabine crawled off the rug and sat next to Swain. "And she obviously wouldn't want to go alone, so I bought the ticket off her since I'm the only other Taylor Zwift fan she knows and I obviously do the best concert outfits. It makes sense."
"If I were you, I'd be more concerned with self-preservation than sense," Kanan said.
The girls looked at one another.
"No regrets," Sabine said. "Taylor was amazing."
Swain nodded agreement. "We screamed and danced for her."
"Ten out of ten, we'd do it again."
"Wrong thing to say," Hera announced.
Sabine wasn't fazed. "No matter how much carbon scoring I have to scrub, I'll still have the memories from tonight."
"They'd better be good." She pointed to the ground beside her. "We're going home. Now."
Sabine fist bumped Swain on her way. "See you later, girl."
"Much later." Kanan grabbed her arm and they were off.
…
Two weeks later, Sabine shoved the canned meilooruns in the supermarket to the side so she could see to the other side of the shelf, where Swain had done the same with the cereal boxes.
"How bad was it?" They didn't have a lot of time. Zeb and Ezra were in the store with her, and would snitch on her immediately if they caught her talking to a shelf.
"Kallus made me work the drunk tank for a week, but it wasn't the worst," Swain said. "How about you?"
"I got grounded and Hera made me do everyone's chores."
"Ouch, sorry. When does the grounding get lifted?"
"It was over last week." She checked to make sure Zeb and Ezra were still in the candy aisle. "Which is good, because I heard the cantina downtown got a karaoke machine."
"With the Taylor Zwift expansion pack?"
"You'd better believe it."
"Girl, I am so there. Taungsday night?"
"Let's do it. Just remember to call before we head out."
"I won't." And they had a good track record on it too. They had only forgotten to call their parents before the concert because they were too busy fussing over their outfits. Their other outings – the drinks, the ice creams, the dancing – had gone over without a whiff of parental suspicion. And there were going to be many more if they had anything to say about it.
Sabine and Swain shared a fist bump through the grocery shelf, and put the items back.