6

SHALLOW WOUND

"I was born with a knife in one hand and a wound in the other."

— Gregory Orr, The Caged Owl

THE STREET WAS QUIET, the crowd from the parade long since returned to their homes. Imperial guards patrolled the thin street, there more by obligation than actual purpose. Orders demanded they put in the required number of hours outside with rebels afoot; they did so with astonishing monotony. There were no citizens congregating in the alley, now, but their search was impeded all the same by the simple fact that it had barely started. If it were a living thing, it would have been half-asleep, drowsy in its state of sedated consciousness. The trooper's guns were trained towards the ground, almost limp at their sides, a formality. The whole affair held an air of resigned complacence and well-restrained complaints.

Enveloped in a shadowy corner and obscured by luck and a storefront awning, Zoya lowered into a crouch and prepared to spring forward.

Sabine had laid out the situation beforehand: four troopers were stationed at nearly every semi-popular street corner, poised to trigger a plain-sighted trap should the rebel insurgents who'd bombed the Empire Day parade try to escape the city. They'd been heavily cautioned by the higher-ups, Sabine explained, and most were on the lookout for the missing Rodian—Tseebo, who had somewhat subverted expectations for a wanted fugitive—too, hoping that the two events were somehow connected.

Half of the platoon had been called away, leaving the remaining two with the heavily-armed transport. Unlike the rest of the stationed troops, this squad had been granted a battering ram of a carrier, fully stocked with new, state-of-the-art weaponry and a heavy turret. Zoya remembered seeing some earlier models at the Academy when she was younger; these things were the hallmarks of occupational violence. Flashing sirens in the form of misshapen, melted-down scraps. They were punctuation in the language of oppression. The great steel dogs of the Empire.

The first trooper was farther away from their companion, back to Zoya and the rest of the street. There was a blaster in their hands. The first thing that had to go.

Zoya vaulted upwards, rolling to a stop at the stormtrooper's feet and sweeping out a leg. Taking advantage of the trooper's surprised stumble, Zoya drove a fist into the soft skin between their helmet and torso, jabbing at their windpipe. The trooper clutched at their neck, toppling backward, a well-placed strike of Zoya's boot knocking them out cold.

The sound of the second trooper falling followed a second later. Zoya had left her helmet back on the ship—she disliked the feeling of the black metal over her face, obscuring her periphery—and she let Sabine see her grin at the sight of the waylaid troopers. Sabine cracked a knuckle and winced. "I miss Zeb."

"Will your teeny-tiny Mandalorian hands survive?" Zoya teased. Sabine shot her a dirty look.

Kanan rushed past them, lunging for the black-clad driver who had peered out the transport to stare straight at them. Zoya started, realizing she hadn't seen the trooper coming, and reached for her own blaster. Kanan, already there, threw out a fist, catching the trooper in the side of the head. He collapsed, black armor half-disappearing into the shadows below the transport. After a quick inspection, Kanan held up a hand to usher everyone on board.

Zoya checked behind her, relieved to see Ezra pushing Tseebo in front of him with a disgusted look on his face. He caught her looking and grimaced.

She wasn't sure if that was Tseebo's doing, or hers. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know.

Sabine slid into the driver's seat, Kanan to the passenger side. Zoya steadied herself with a hand on Sabine's shoulder as the latter's own flew over the controls, but the jerky start the transport gave as they took off was unavoidable. In the back, the sound of Tseebo falling over was painfully audible.

They'd picked up the transport only a few blocks out of city limits, which was both beneficial and detrimental to their plan. On one hand, they didn't have far to go on their way out. On the other, the forces already piled onto the boundaries could assemble themselves easily before the transport ever arrived, making their escape difficult.

The transport rounded the corner and Zoya took in the fast-approaching view: a hastily-formed blockade spread out across all eight lanes, consisting of two transports just like this one, two small walkers, and a handful of specialized troopers. It reminded Zoya of the day they'd met Ezra, though no one had reacted so quickly then—the Imperials had grown wary this time around.

"I have no plans on stopping," Sabine announced, flicking another switch on the console. The transport sped up.

Ezra grasped the back of Kanan's seat, eyes flicking up to the barricade apprehensively. "And if they don't move?"

Something malicious crawled into Sabine's voice, there and then gone. "They'll move."

When she wasn't paying attention, Zoya missed the monster that lurked beneath her friend's skin. Hera had never been guarded with her past, though certain topics—Her father's name was taboo among the crew—remained off-limits to the rest of them. Even Kanan's former profession had been common knowledge among the team prior to Ezra's arrival, and Zeb had never hesitated in sharing a story from his childhood, gaze lighting with vicious, vindicated glee whenever Zoya was foolish enough to ask.

But Sabine, for all the years she and Zoya had been friends, remained just as unreachable as Zoya had made herself. They'd always been two islands, orbiting one another—equally distant, mirroring the fog they'd let form in wake of answers. Wanting to know what put that steely edge in Sabine's voice was unfair, and Zoya knew it. But the urge to ask still lingered, sometimes.

The transport surged forward, knocking one of the walkers down. The crash shook the cabin and Zoya gripped the seat tighter. Smoke wafted from the explosion, tiny fires littering the lane. The transport surged forward and out of city limits, leaving the barricade behind.

"Well, Sabine, you got what you wanted. They moved," Zoya yelled. "And I think they're tailing us."

In answer, the transport door shuddered behind her, jolts of electricity flashing blue over the small space before the door ripped off its hinges, thick black smoke cloaking the explosion.

Zoya reached for her blade right as the smoke cleared and one of the troopers from the barricade swung onto the transport, kicking out at Ezra. Ezra stumbled back, clutching his stomach, and the trooper's gaze swung to Tseebo. "The Rodian."

Zoya slammed the hilt of her vibroblade against their head, swinging a knee up hard into the soft padding between thighs. The trooper groaned and buckled beneath her, right hook catching Zoya in the face. Zoya staggered back, throwing up her hands to protect herself as another barrage of punches came.

"Duck!" Kanan yelled from behind her, and Zoya dropped to the ground on instinct; Kanan's aim was verifiably lethal and she didn't want to make a habit of getting in its way. A muffled thud; then the trooper flew out the window, colliding with their companion. The speeder disappeared from view, a faint explosion echoing in the distance.

Zoya stood, wiping a speck of dust from her suit. "Thanks—"

The transport shook again, physical impact nearly knocking Zoya off her feet. Kanan slid back into the passenger seat. Above them, the sound of footsteps against metal was just barely audible.

Zoya clenched her jaw. Kallus. There was no one else it could have been.

Sabine's gloved hands tightened on the controls. Her helmet was still on, but the taut line of her voice illustrated a vibrant picture in lieu of the real thing. Eyes narrowed with focus, mouth a hard slant, blue-orange hair a sweaty mop splayed across her forehead. "Spectre-5 to Ghost, we're coming in hot."

"Can see that," Zeb replied. "You've got company upstairs."

Zoya listened for the sound of footsteps, but Kallus must have stopped moving; blaster fire from the Ghost sounded somewhere down the lane. Something hit the roof and tumbled away. Zoya's gaze moved uncertainly back to the comm attached to Sabine's wrist. "Zeb, is that you, or should we be worried?"

"It's us. You're all clear. Pull over and we'll—"

A second, more terse voice cut in. Hera sounded out of breath, but otherwise fine. "Belay that. Have to be a scoop job. Sensors reading multiple TIEs incoming."

Zoya fought back the urge to bury her face in her hands as Tseebo listed off another bout of information from Imperial files. Scoop jobs were always messy and unpredictable, and she hated the volatility of them. The thought of jumping onto a moving vehicle from a moving vehicle made her want to be sick over the side of the ship.

Sabine kept hold of steering as Ezra herded Tseebo closer to the window the missing door had left. Careful not to jump too far, Zoya pulled herself up the side of the ship, gripping the metal plating hard enough for it to press against her palms and draw blood. Kanan did the same, leaning down to help Ezra up.

The Ghost lowered above them, Zeb extending a hand from the ramp. "Get in," he ordered.

Tseebo went first, carefully guided by Kanan. Sabine started to follow when the disarming crimson of a blaster fired narrowly missed her shoulder. Kallus had pulled himself onto the transport, bow-rifle raised.

"Go, go!" Kanan yelled.

Zoya yanked Ezra onboard as Kanan ignited his lightsaber, deflecting the shots Kallus fired. Zoya didn't waste time watching to see if he got onboard—Kanan had a way of defying gravity that she would never understand. Instead, Zoya ran for the rec room, Sabine in tow. Ezra dragged Tseebo after them.

The lights flickered erratically, the walls shaking with the force of Imperial weapons. "Karabast," Zeb cursed, running for the ladder. "That came from behind. Is that scrap heap even paying attention?"

Sabine, helmet now discarded, spared Zoya and Ezra a cursory glance, taking stock of their ragged appearances. Zoya had been right: she looked like a well-made bed after someone had ruffled it. "I have to man the nosegun."

Ezra raised a hand, saying, "I'm coming with," at the same time Zoya replied, "I'll come." They started, turning identical glares on one another.

The Ghost groaned around them. Ezra and Tseebo tumbled to the floor. Zoya caught hold of the ladder Zeb had disappeared up, fighting valiantly not to fall down in front of Ezra.

Tseebo's unnaturally blue eyes shuttered, stars shifting behind them. Rodian eyes looked like prisms holding entire galaxies inside, but Tseebo's looked distressed as he looked around. Everything about him seemed more focused—in the way he sat up, shaking his head, and the scrutinizing look the boy still half-crumpled on the floor in front of him was subjected to. "Ezra? Ezra Bridger?" Tseebo gasped, the sound of it wet and disbelieving. "It is you!"

Ezra flinched back. "Yeah, Tseebo. It's me. But now's really not the best time for a reunion."

"Ezra Bridger..." Tseebo whispered. He hissed something in what sounded like Huttese, eyes wide and hazy, almost unseeing. The momentary control he'd wrested from the machinery in his head seemed to sputter, give out.

"What's he saying?" Ezra asked, unreadable eyes moving from Tseebo to Sabine.

Sabine's eyes were wide. Her mouth parted, words stalling on her lips. "He... he says he knows what happened to your parents."

Ezra's face went slack, wiped of emotion. The blank expression she'd seen the day they first met at the mention of Tarkin's name surged upward, a fortress newly erected, and now all of them would be locked out. Words pressed against the roof of Zoya's mouth, begging to be let out and heard, to tell him to snap out of it. Tseebo's declaration would tunnel into the space between the three of them, widening it imperceptibly, until she'd turn and find three feet had yawned into a chasm.

She'd begun to learn the language he was already well-versed in, these last few weeks, and knew this with a stone-cold certainty that hung over her shoulders, an invisible weight: Ezra never unraveled visibly. It happened beneath his skin, in the slow death of his own regard for them and the muted way he watched Sabine and Zoya, gauging their reactions. As if deciding how to act based on the way they had.

"Sabine, I need you in the nose gun, now!"

Hera's voice sliced through the terse silence, a hot knife through butter. Zoya felt some of the wired fear leave her shoulders, but Ezra's wall didn't loosen. Expression guarded, he lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. "Didn't you hear Hera?"

"Didn't you hear Tseebo?" Sabine demanded. "He said he knows what happened to your parents!"

Ezra's wall disappeared, teeth bared. "I already know what happened. They're dead. So go."

For a second, his eyes shot to Zoya, and she raised her chin, defiant. If he wanted her to wear that pitying look Sabine was failing to keep off her face, he'd be sorely disappointed.

He paused in his inspection of her as Sabine rounded the corner, and when he broke the stare, Zoya followed.

The Ghost was a fairly-sized ship, but it felt behemoth as she raced after Sabine. The nosegun was near the front of the ship and Sabine was faster than she was. By the time Zoya hit the doorway, breath coming too fast to be leisurely, Sabine was halfway to her seat, fingers reaching for the trigger preemptively. The scream of more TIEs resonated outside in the walls, thrumming in Zoya's bones. She felt them like one felt bugs flying around their ears—a constant, battering presence. Unavoidable, but easy to forget about all the same.

Hera's voice rang out over the comm system again, more harried than before. "Someone want to tell me why we're extra popular tonight?"

Kanan, the low timbre of his words edged with exhaustion. "We've picked up a passenger. The Rodian the Imperials are hunting."

"And he's important because...?"

"Because his cybernetic implant has downloaded half the Empire's secrets," Sabine finished, firing at one of the TIEs.

Zoya grinned at the moment of silence that followed, Hera's gaping mouth, a fish gulping in large breaths of water, quickly became a palpable presence in the small nosegun pit. "I... Okay, I can see why that's important," Hera conceded. "Let's get him out of here."

A TIE shrieked past the window, Sabine a hair too late to fire. The shot rang into the distance, bright red light fading from view. The ship whirred, humming to life. The floor rattled in warning, a feeling that Zoya had become familiar with: the sound of the hyperdrive bursting to life.

"Hold on," Sabine said, eyes still set determinedly ahead. Zoya obeyed, grateful Sabine had warned her before the ship groaned, a sign of both its age and the action it had set about performing. The stars outside bled together, the engines freeing a sudden surge of speed, and blue light flooded the room. Zoya did her best not to throw up all over the nosegun and fry the controls. In the reflection cast on the window, her face was a verdant green.

Sabine shook her head, an amused glint in her eyes. "I don't know how you live with us if you hate flying."

Zoya hesitated, pursing her lips. How to say: Because the first time I flew, it was two days after my mother was murdered. Because the first time I flew, it was away from the only place I'd ever known.

"The ship shakes too much," is what came out instead.

They reconvened in the rec room, everyone having been briefed on the situation. Zoya busied herself playing with one of her vibroblades, watching the azure glow slide over her palm like water. She'd come into ownership of them during a run to Coruscant. Hera had brought her with to buy medicine and more supplies—namely, bandages, as Zoya had begged Kanan to train her and, consequently, suffered his indiscriminate treatment every night. Hera's hopes of an unscathed alliance between the two of them had gone unanswered by the gods.

The tip of the blade pierced skin, a small fountain of blood welling up through the scratch. Zoya watched, analytical and unmoving, as it bloomed vermilion over her fingers. The thin stream of blood slithered, serpentine, over her hand, and she tugged her sleeve forward, smearing it against the black material. It fought, digging deep into the crevices of her forefinger, but the cloth eventually wiped all trace of it away. All that was left behind was a faint pink stain across her knuckles.

Ezra picked at the Dejarik table forlornly, brows knit tight. He'd been relieved of Tseebo duty by Kanan, who was spending his time with his charge waving objects and the occasional body part in Tseebo's face and trying to get Tseebo to react. After Chopper, the hilt of his lightsaber, and his hand all failed, he gave up and sat back. Defeat drew a lazy smile on his face; confusion clouded his eyes. He might have looked happy to the untrained eye, but to Zoya, he just looked tense.

"So," Ezra said into the silence. "Now what do we do with him?"

Kanan leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "We have a few ideas." Tseebo, placid, stared unseeing into space. Kanan tilted his head, nodding towards Ezra. "But you're the one who has history with Tseebo. What do you think we should do?"

Ezra's lower lip jutted out and he pulled on his graffitied helmet. "Don't know. Don't much care."

Zoya pressed the flat of her blade against her hand. The sharp, serrated age rubbed uncomfortably there, and the distraction from the undercurrent of tension in the room was welcome.

"Ezra," Kanan began, voice devastatingly superior and rippling with the beginning of a lecture, "you'll never advance as Jedi if you can't be honest—with yourself, at least."

From beneath the helmet, Ezra's voice was muffled but petulant. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think?" Zoya ground out, then froze when she realized the words had actually left her mouth. She stuffed the vibroblade haphazardly in her sheath and avoided Ezra's weighty stare.

"It means Tseebo matters to you," Kanan accused when it became clear Zoya wouldn't say anything else. He reached out and tugged the helmet free. Ezra's hair came undone, staticky and wild, at its removal. "You do care what happens to him."

Ezra made a face. "Why should I? He did nothing to save my parents." Tseebo, looking half-drunk on Coruscanti wine, stared into space. An apt reaction for a flimsy accusation, Zoya decided. She wished she could do the same.

Skepticism made Kanan's face sharper. "What could he have done against the entire Empire?"

"And besides, look what he's done since," Sabine cut in. "The Imperials encourage these implants, but they're not mandatory. Not yet. He must have volunteered." She manhandled Tseebo's head and unceremoniously pushed it into Ezra's face. "And then he uploaded their secrets and ran. Maybe he's trying to make up for letting you down. Why else would he take on the Empire alone?"

Ezra's gaze slid towards Zoya and she belatedly realized her eyebrow was raised, unconvinced of Sabine's words. She flattened her brows and schooled her face into neutrality. Privately, she agreed with Ezra—if the words he'd whispered before the TIEs arrived were true, then Tseebo had effectively abandoned him when he'd needed him most. Zoya would feel the same, in his position.

"Empire..." Tseebo murmured. He said something in that other language again.

Sabine's face was pinched with concentration from translating as she surveyed the room. "He says... the Empire can track the Ghost."

"Oh, please. The Imperials can't track us through hyperspace," Zeb scoffed, quick to change the conversation topic, and Zoya's skin erupted in gooseflesh, having forgotten he was there. He paused. "Uh... can they?"

The machine in Tseebo's head beeped. "Imperial XX-23 S-thread tracker was developed by Sienar Systems to trace ships through hyperspace to destination," he recited, the way Zoya would whenever she was called to read from a textbook at the Academy.

"Hera," Kanan said, very slowly, "could they track us with that thing?"

Hera's face had gone a shade paler, but it might have been the light. "Guess we better find out." She finished installing Chopper's comm dish, it having been broken during the earlier fight, and pressed a button.

Chopper sputtered to life, releasing an angry string of chirps that were most likely berating all of them for not waking it up sooner.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, Chop, you were just off-line for a few minutes," Hera consoled.

Zoya smirked. She'd been right.

Hera pointed at the holo-display of the tracker. "We need you to scan the ship for that."

Chopper fired off another beep with the reluctant tenor of a complaint. "Stop grumbling and find that tracker, you rust-bucket," Zeb growled. They disappeared around the corner.

Zoya smiled at their retreating backs, glad that at the very least, Chopper wasn't acting any different from usual; she could always count on the droid to be its curmudgeon self. The perpetually black mood Chopper had adopted shouldn't have been comforting, but Zoya found solace in the fact that Chopper would, at the very least, never yell at her. Not about anything that actually mattered.

When she looked back towards the others, her eyes met Ezra's. His jaw ticked. Zoya looked away before he could ask her any questions—about last night; about her body, awake when it shouldn't be; about the words she hadn't meant to let slip.

It didn't matter. He could ask, but he'd be disappointed. She had never been gifted with answers.

✶

When Chopper had finished scanning the ship, Hera called everyone into the cockpit via the speaker and Zoya obediently joined in, taking her usual seat and melting into the shadows of the dark room. Blue light from both the hyperspace streaks invading via the window and the hologram Hera activated illuminated the small circle of space between all of them. The tiny red arrows indicating the tracker on the ship's hull and their blinking insistence hurt to look at—both because of the knowledge that they were being followed and because Tseebo had been right.

"So they did tag us," Sabine muttered.

"Yes," Hera conceded. But the good news is the tracer's actually on the hull of the Phantom."

Zeb crossed his arms. "How is that good news, exactly?"

"It'll allow us to detach the Phantom and lure the Imperials away from the Ghost—and Tseebo."

Zoya jerked her head up, alarmed, as Sabine waved her hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You want to detach while in hyperspace? Do you know how incredibly dangerous that is?"

The corners of Kanan's mouth tipped up in a cavalier half-smile. "Not as dangerous as what I plan to do with the ship."

"Fantastic," said Zoya, fingers itching to take her knife back out. The scab from earlier was already beginning to form, and she regretted actually piercing skin every time her hand indiscriminately (and, she thought privately so as not to anger it any further, cruelly) ached at movement of any kind.

Kanan, impervious, ignored her. "I checked our current trajectory. If you"—the you in question being Hera—"can modify the hyperdrive coordinates..."

"I could," Hera agreed, albeit suspiciously.

"Then we can pass by the asteroid field where the old clone base is," Kanan finished. He looked entirely too smug with himself for coming up with this plan, but Zoya couldn't bring herself to fault him for it. Mai would hate that look, though. A higher-pitched, mangled version of her voice burrowed into Zoya's head: Contribution doesn't merit praise; results do. Didn't they teach you that, at least?

Somehow, even the version of Mai that Zoya had dreamt up—whose knifed edge was blunt, whose harsh words were comical—still managed to be cutting.

"You mean the base with all the nasties who live in the shadows?" Sabine asked, appalled, jolting Zoya back to the present, away from the caricature of her sister that lived in her head.

Said base had been discovered a few weeks ago during a routine fuel run. The lack of fuel actually on the planet quickly became apparent, but by the time they realized that, Hera and Sabine were already stranded. The whole affair had actually been Ezra and Zeb's fault; they hadn't refueled the Phantom and suffered an enormously entertaining punishment of cleanup duty for it.

Ezra turned a shade of white that looked unnatural on his usually brown skin. He seemed to have forgotten he was sulking about Tseebo's newfound importance in favor of expressing his extreme fear of a place he'd never been. "Wait, what? Why would we want to go down there?"

"He's right, Kanan," Hera said firmly. "Why not just drop the Phantom into our trail and let the Imperials chase after their tracker?"

Kanan set his jaw. "Because there's more than a tracker at work here. Back on Lothal, I sensed it. The Inquisitor is on our trail, and as long as Ezra and I are on board the Ghost, we're jeopardizing Tseebo's escape."

Ezra, who had now been reminded of his original complaint, looked affronted. "So I gotta leave the Ghost and go to this nasty-filled asteroid as a favor to Tseebo?"

"As a favor to all of us," Kanan corrected. He flashed a lopsided grin, and added, "And don't worry. I'll be right beside you."

Ezra looked mutinous. Hera looked tired. Zoya looked out the cockpit window into the hyperspace lane and prayed that this didn't end in bloodstains on jackets and cauterized wounds on a far-off planet.

✶

When the Phantom was long gone, disappeared in a flash of blinding light that sent the world spinning, Hera shook her head once, twice, and typed in hyperspace coordinates that were part of a sect of the plan it was becoming increasingly clear Zoya, Sabine, and Zeb were not privy to. The Ghost emerged from hyperspace once, jumped again, and repeated the action, as though Hera was quietly paranoid that the tracker had somehow made its way from the hull of the Phantom to the Ghost and that at any moment, the Inquisitor's ship would appear out of the deep nothingness surrounding them and blast the ship to pieces.

Fulcrum, who was anonymous to everyone but Hera, remained a point of contention among their crew: Zeb didn't particularly care, Kanan trusted Hera, Ezra had no idea Fulcrum existed, Sabine resented the anonymity of it all, and Zoya had spent too long as a soldier to question Hera's actions.

She had tried to parse why it didn't bother her that she was helping someone whose face she'd never seen, whose real voice she'd never heard. Perhaps it was the obedience that had been drilled into her from the moment she could comprehend orders; the Academy was diligent in its teachings, and Zoya had never been one to dissect the meaning behind the words she was fed. Perhaps it was Mai's words, vicious and twisted, running circles around her mind as she tried to understand the truth that inevitably lay in them. She'd helped Mai purely through her own obliviousness; stumbling into a trap blind was not the same as not understanding that it could be there. After enough time, Zoya learned that the traps existed; she just never learned to counter them.

The knife was heavy in its sheath on her thigh. It was longer than the second she owned, an older or earlier model whose origins she didn't care the learn. The Coruscanti vendor who'd sold them to her had Clone armor hanging up in the back of his stall; Zoya had thought, briefly, of Lux's stories and the captain who'd trained him on Onderon. Where was that captain now?

Fulcrum's ship was a Clone Wars-era corvette, painted over with blue stripes that must have some meaning lost on Zoya. Sabine's honeyed eyes monitored it distrustfully as the docking process began, the Ghost sliding into the berth of space it had been given and the nameless corvette allowing it to.

"Fulcrum to Ghost," came the voice over the radio when the whole process was complete. The voice was garbled with modulation and sounded more robotic than human. Zoya wished the voice at least held the timbre of something real; then she might not feel so cold listening to the clinical way they spoke. "Docking complete. Heading to the airlock now."

"Acknowledged, Fulcrum," Hera replied, and her voice was warm; she held none of the nebulous reservations thundering above Sabine's head. "We're ready and waiting."

Sabine leaded back in her seat, peering up at Hera through thick black lashes. "I don't suppose the rest of us could get to meet Fulcrum this time?"

"Nope," Hera said cheerfully. "This time, you stay in the cockpit."

Zeb looked less angry and more bored. "That's what we did last time."

"Hmm," Hera said, which could mean either this conversation is over or stop talking, but it was more likely that it was a mix of both. "Too bad."

She beamed, beatific, and on cue, the door slid shut in front of her.

Zoya spun in her seat, gaze going back to the corvette outside. She wondered if Lux had ever been in a ship like this; he'd said they were fairly common back when the Clone Wars. She closed her eyes, picturing him inside that ship—wandering the engine room, seated at the cockpit, lying in one of the bunks. Had a younger Lux seen a thousand of these ships? Would Zoya?

She despised the idea of a life lived on ships, never settling on one planet; traipsing across the galaxy in some prolonged adventure. She thought of her father again, saw him swept by the sea of the crowd. Hand reaching for her mother's—to do what? Hold? Grip, even after the pulse had cut off, finality taking hold of her body. Reva Hasan had died that night, and her father had disappeared. That had been the worst of it: knowing what had happened to her mother, but not her father. The answer would not be the one she wanted, but it would at least be an answer.

In the two days following that night at the gala, Zoya hadn't been able to leave the venue they'd held it in; Imperial guards had swarmed the grounds. Her mother had been executed by Imperial guards. Zoya knew for certain, pressed against the wall behind mounds of rice and spices, that they were coming for her too. The traitor's second daughter.

Zoya blinked several times, trying to clear her head. Sit still too long, and they flooded her system in an insurmountable wave, blinding her. She'd been soaked by the oncoming current so many times that the memories were more like scenes of a video she'd rewatched over and over, picked apart until she could play it on her own.

Blink. The pantry, Zoya huddled in the corner, hearing her own breath and voices from outside. Blink. Her mother's body, bloody on the floor. Lux, reaching out. Blink. The Imperial officer, standing over her, boot crushing her ribs.

Zoya stood, not realizing she'd done so until Sabine's gaze moved towards her. The concern in her eyes bordered on alarm, and Zoya forced herself not to show the panic on her face.

"Zoya?" Sabine asked. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she heard herself say. Her voice sounded, miraculously, level. "Sorry."

Sabine snorted. "Why are you apologizing? You stood up. That's not exactly a capital offense."

Mai, standing at the kitchen counter, appeared at Sabine's side. Her mouth moved, and Zoya felt a rush of happiness. Thank you, Mai had said, the rare bout of generosity that Zoya craved so much pouring from the words. Zoya had nodded. She'd told her something, something important. Zoya didn't want to think about that now.

She blinked again, and Mai faded.

"When's Hera coming back?" Zoya asked. She wasn't sure how long she'd sat there, remembering, and she didn't want to ask.

Sabine waved a hand. Zoya wasn't sure what that meant, so she turned away from the window and the corvette and the memories and looked at what was safe.

The ceiling paneling bracketing the compressor needed tightening. She wasn't good enough to do it herself, but she could ask Ezra if he got back.

When. She needed to stop doing that.

The cockpit door opened. Hera strode in, taking her seat near the front. Sabine straightened. "So?"

"Tseebo's safe," Hera said, and Zoya exhaled. "Fulcrum's people will stay in hiding until they can relocate him."

"And now?" Zeb prompted.

Hera flipped a switch, typed in hyperdrive coordinates. "Now, we meet Ezra and Kanan at the rendezvous."

"Assuming they're still there," Zoya amended. "Assuming the Inquisitor didn't—"

"He didn't," Hera said, in a tone that left no room for argument. "Have some faith in them, okay? They know what they're doing."

Zoya crossed her arms. "Maybe Kanan does."

Hera laughed, and the sound felt like it had been pulled out of her without meaning to be; she looked momentarily surprised. By the time Zoya thought to wonder why she looked that way—like she'd never heard Zoya make a joke before, like she thought she couldn't—the hyperdrive was activating and Zoya was gripping the hilt of the knife to ground herself.

They didn't have to wait long at the rendezvous before the Phantom appeared from hyperspace. Kanan and Ezra had a head start on them, and the Clone base hadn't been far. Still, the minutes felt lengthened, armed with paranoia and a sense of foreboding that Zoya felt like a physical presence in the room.

Sabine grinned at Kanan as he climbed down the ladder. "Welcome back."

"You made it," Hera said, visibly relieved. The crease that had appeared between her brows loosened.

"Was there ever any doubt?"

"Yes," Zoya said, because it was the truth.

Kanan stared at her for a second, then burst out laughing. "Fair enough."

Hera smiled and pinned her attention on Ezra, who had been quiet since coming down the ladder behind Kanan. "Ezra, I have something to—"

"Ezra needs a little time to himself right now," Kanan interrupted smoothly, blocking Ezra from view with his body. Ezra pushed past him and disappeared, presumably off to his room. Zoya watched him go, his shoulders hunched in a way that she hadn't seen before. Defeat looked like a lazy smile on Kanan, a joke only he knew the punchline to. On Ezra, it looked like slumped shoulders and dark circle beneath eyes. It looked like overworking and exhaustion.

Sabine nudged Zoya with an armored elbow, drawing her attention from the door. She turned so that their backs shielded them from view, twin walls resembling the one she'd seen in Ezra's face shoring up. "I've got something I think you should see," Sabine murmured, and withdrew a round, newly-cleaned disk from her pocket.

It was the memory drive Zoya had picked up after Ezra had thrown it away hours ago in his old family home. The once-rusted outside was now polished, shining as if it had just come from a vendor's stall on Coruscant and not the lower bunk in their shared room.

Zoya inspected it, feeling surprise bleed across her face, a guest unexpected but not unwelcome. "You fixed it."

"You asked me to," Sabine asked, perplexed. Zoya fought not to look caught off guard—Sabine threw out those comments as if they meant nothing. Had people always done things for her because she'd asked, because her words held some undeterminable weight? Zoya wasn't sure that she could say she'd do the same for Sabine—everything in her life had always been weighed and given value, a constant, never-ending business transaction she'd learned to live with. Even this small favor felt like a debt she needed to repay somehow.

"And anyway, it's Ezra's birthday." Sabine paused. "When's your birthday, by the way? I just realized, I've never asked."

Zoya's body went cold, and she tried not to look as tense as the words made her feel. "Birthdays weren't big when I was little," she replied. "I don't really remember, to be honest." Liar. It had been two months ago, the week that Ezra joined them. Half of that statement had been true—birthdays had never held much importance when she was growing up. But that was because they hadn't had the money, and after Lux came, they'd stopped caring about the dates that had simply used up all the mattering they could hold.

"Oh. Well, he deserves a present," Sabine continued, and relief loosened the hard line of Zoya's shoulder enough for her to breathe without panicking. The knowing glint in Sabine's eyes striking a match against Zoya's ribs—she knew it was a lie, she saw through her, what would Zoya say?—went out.

"He does," Zoya whispered, voice hoarse. The knowledge that Empire Day of all days was Ezra's birthday felt like a handful of salt pressed to the wound from the night she'd snapped at him. The guilt was eating her alive, but she'd spent her life running from wounds, even shallow ones. The thought of walking towards the pain made her want to throw up.

But she also remembered the way he'd looked at her in the darkness, like he really wanted to understand what was keeping her up. Like he wanted to know its name, if only to fight it.

Apologies bubbled at her lips, begging to be let out, but Zoya had apologized so many times for so many things that the words held little meaning to her anymore. She'd taken a weight onto her shoulders trying to make up for past mistakes and had no idea how to walk with that burden. Would Ezra—who had said the right thing, only for her to splinter; who had woken up and followed her to make sure she was okay, even when he didn't have to—understand the meaning behind the disk, the sentiment she couldn't voice?

Zoya met Sabine's expectant eyes, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Just—when you give it to him, don't tell him it was my idea. Please."

"Why?" asked Sabine, looking even more confused than before. "Don't you want him to—"

"No," said Zoya. "I don't."

Sabine looked like she wanted to protest again, but closed her mouth, pocketing the disk. Zoya watched it disappear into the folds of black fabric and abruptly remembered how similar the suits they wore were. Twin islands, orbiting one another. Sabine's armor bore the marks of her lineage, of the family she'd left on Mandalore. The family she never elaborated on, the one Zoya never asked about. Zoya's, on the other hand, remained black as night and as easy to miss in the darkness. It was made for stealth, for running, for hiding. Zoya had made an art of cowardice in wearing it.

At last, Sabine said, "I don't know what's going on between you two, and I don't really want to. But it's not worth hiding that you actually care about his well-being. It's normal to want to make someone happy when they're upset."

No, it's not. Mai's voice again, high and disdainful in her head, the caricature come to life. But Sabine's face was open and earnest, and the hard edges of the sword Zoya had become softened a bit. She had cut herself on caring for other people so many times before that genuine worry for her sake caught her by surprise.

"I'll think about it," Zoya conceded, resistance crumbling, and from the way Sabine's face brightened, those words really meant okay.

Something warm bloomed in Zoya's chest at the look, petals unfolding into one of the blossoms the sakoola trees back home had made a career of losing to the wind. "Okay," she said, softly, rolling the concession around in her mouth. Where defeat should have been sharp against her tongue, it was sweet.

Sabine smiled again. Okay.

author's note have a soft ending to a two-part expedition full of angst!!!! i'm actually very happy with how this turned out, so any validation/comments/thoughts would mean a ton to me!! i also kept it a bit shorter than the last few chapters (re: the 10k word monstrosities) which i hope helped the reading experience. i also have a much better handle on where this story is going now that i've finished plotting out its entirety, which will be very painful again so enjoy this and the next chapter while you can. we hit my first foray into original content territory during chapters 8-9, and it's going to be absolutely wild so prepare yourself :') mayhaps we'll finally meet mai in person but who knows??

i really tried to flesh zoya's character out a bit more than she was previously this chapter, so please tell me what you thought of her in the comments!!! her character arc is going to be a bit different than the first four chapters might have indicated, but now that it's fully developed i can say with certainty it'll be very fun to read—s2 is going to be very fun for her development and i can't wait to introduce the original characters i have planned as well!!

as always, thank you for reading (and sticking around, if you're here) and make sure to leave your thoughts below!! all the comments mean the absolute world to me :)))