Author's Note: Hello, hello! Back with a prompt that I did with some friends. We found a prompt generator and were given random titles. From which we had to write fan fiction.
Oh boy...
I got "I should Know"
So I wrote 4 mini-scenes that all had that line.
"Sabine, bring me the hydrospanner."
Sabine dug through the toolbox and picked out the requested tool and passed it down to Hera, where she lay on her back beneath the aft cooling array. "How's it coming down there."
"Oh, fine, fine. It's just going to take me a week to get the Ghost back into shape. All the while, I'm grounded here on Yavin."
"What? You can't pull rank to get a couple of extra mechanics out here?" Sabine pulled up Hera's worklist on the Ghost on the console. It was pretty extensive.
"If you think I'm letting some stranger touch my baby…" Hera slid out from under the array and wiped the sweat from her forehead. "That finishes that. Come on. Let's go get some caf."
They climbed their way out of the engine compartment to the common room. Sabine started the caf and slid behind the table. Hera stood waiting at the caf machine, a mischievous grin on her face.
Sabine didn't like the look of that one bit. "Spit it out. Whatever you're thinking, just say it."
"Oh, I was just thinking that you and Ezra were making a pretty good team these days."
"And?" This was bait, and she knew better than to take bait.
"And spending a lot of time together these days."
There it was. "That happens when you assign us to the same missions."
The caf maker chimed and Hera poured them each a mug of the bitter drink. Sabine leaned back and pulled a small foil pack out of a cabinet.
"What's that?" Hera asked.
"Chocolate," Sabine said, dropping a small square of the priceless candy into her caf.
"Who did you kill to get that?"
"Ezra. I mean…" After promising herself not to take bait, she'd just blundered into a minefield on her own. "I didn't kill Ezra. He got it for me. Not by killing anyone. Look. He knows people, okay?" Sabine slouched into her chair and shut her mouth. No way she was having this conversation with Hera. Not now. Not ever.
Hera took a sip of her caf and smiled. "Who am I to judge. Jedi certainly have their charms." She winked. "I should know."
"No, no, no. This one goes here. That one goes there."
Chopper rotated his photoreceptor toward AP-5, who was pointing at a cargo manifest with exaggerated gestures. Somedays the droid was alarmingly dramatic. No matter. Chopper knew how to use this to his advantage. He extended a manipulator and pointed it at a crate of rations. "Whu-wub?
"C1-10P, I believe your auditory receivers are jammed. I clearly told you that the survival tents are to be taken to Hanger 2 and that the rations are to be taken to deep storage."
"Wuwuhbba-wau." Chopper rolled to the crate he had pointed at and interfaced with its lift. The crate gently lifted on its repulsors. Chopper grabbed onto the push rail and started to take it across Yavin's open landing field. If Hera assigned him to inventory duty with AP-5 one more time, he would have to file a complaint with her. AP-5 was the most obnoxious, condescending, malfunction piece of scrap that Chopper had ever had to work with.
"You're going the wrong way."
Chopped looked at the crate and then swiveled his dome to look back at the inventory droid. Of course, he was going the wrong way; that was precisely the point. AP-5 was too dense to realize that he was being screwed with. He stopped and pointed a manipulator at the crate he'd left behind.
AP-5 lifted both arms above his head in consternation. "Yes, Chopper. Those are the rations. You have the survival tents."
Chopper looked back and forth between the crates and pointed at his own. "Wubawa?"
"No, that goes to Hanger 2."
Here it came. Chopper knew he was getting close. He shook his head rapidly. "Wu-wu."
"I said… You know what. I shall take care of this my self. If you want things done correctly, you have to do them yourself. I should know. I am a specialist." The ex-imperial walked over to Chopper's crate, and, mumbling something about worthless astromechs, took the hand rail for himself.
Chopper pumped his manipulator in a victory cheer and rolled off toward the Ghost. Why work when there are willing dupes to do it for you?
"You're cheating," Zeb snarled. "You never lose a single filthy cent."
Alexandre Kallus raised an eyebrow and shrugged lazily. The hazy break room was a hive of activity, as soldiers, pilots, and technicians laughed and enjoyed their downtime. But here, here at the sabaac table, it was all business.
"Garazeb," he said, laying down his cards. "You may believe what you like, but I will insist you do not besmirch my name aloud with senseless accusation."
Zeb only growled. Perfect, Kallus thought. The angrier the Lasat was, the worse he was at cards. He glanced over at Davish "Pops" Krail. He and the Y-Wing pilot exchanged a sly grin.
"See!" Zeb said, pointing back and forth between the two. "You're all cheating."
Pops chuckled. "Look, Zeb. Maybe you need to admit you're just bad at sabaac."
"I'm not… Karabast, are you all in on it? Rex, what about you?"
The old clone shook his head. "Zeb, don't you think that if I were in on it, I would be earning a few credits out of the deal? Kallus cleans us all out. Well, maybe not Pops, but you and I always go home broke."
Zeb crossed his arms and sulked. "Fine then, Agent. If you're not cheating, then how come you always win? No one is that lucky."
Kallus took a slow drink from his bottle of Correllian brandy. "It's simple, actually. I'm a former intelligence officer. I spent years looking through data sets for patterns and studying foes for weaknesses. Sabaac happens to involve both of those things."
Rex laughed and leaned back in his chair, but Zeb apparently failed to see the humor in the situation. "So you're saying your background as a spook makes you better at cards?"
"Precisely," he said, taking his cards back into his hand. "Your every tell is transparent to me." He gave the lasat a devious smile. "I should know. I spent two years studying the crew of the Ghost. Every account, security recording. You can hardly make a twitch of the muscle that I can't predict." That was a lie, of course, but the further he got under the lasat's skin, the harder he would throw the next hand. He made an extravagant gesture toward Zeb. "I believe it was your bid, Garazeb."
"Karabast," Zeb muttered to the laughs of the other three men present.
Deep in the Yavin forest, two sabers, a green and a blue, traded blows. The characteristic sound of impact rang through the night.
Kanan circled his padawan, one hand behind his back ever nerve calm, his mind clear of distractions. Ezra, on the other hand…
Kanan smiled as he sidestepped the blade that he both heard with his ears and felt in the force. Ezra's momentum carried him past the older Jedi, who tripped him, sending him sprawling in the dirt.
"You're distracted," Kanan said. "Maybe sparring will be less productive than talk."
Ezra picked himself up and brushed himself off. "Sorry. It's been a long few days. I've been thinking about Saw lately and…"
"That wasn't the distraction I was talking about," Kanan said, cutting him off. Maybe Ezra would bring it up on his own accord and maybe not. A little prompting never hurt.
"I'm not sure what you're…"
"I'm talking about Sabine." Kanan was pretty sure the blood had drained from Ezra's face. "Your silence speaks volumes, you know."
Ezra sighed and kicked a rock into the jungle. "Well, what am I supposed to feel when I'm around her? She's amazing and beautiful and… Perfect." He ignited his lightsaber. "You know what? I don't feel like gossip. Let's go back to sparring."
"Ezra, running from your problems will only make them worse. I can't tell you what you're supposed to feel. That's between you and Sabine."
"And the code?" Ezra asked.
Kanan sighed and turned to face the jungle. "We've talked about that. I don't think the Jedi even understood their own doctrine in the end. I do know that, regardless of what you feel, you can't let it interfere with the rest of your life. You can't let it distract you from your other responsibilities."
Ezra paused as if considering that. "I understand. At least in my head. But it's all so hard to live out." he rubbed the back of his neck. "As far as distractions go, Sabine is pretty umm… distracting."
Kanan laughed and reignited his own saber. "Strong woman can be that way. I should know."
Author's Note: And there we go. Not much to it, but a fun little experiment. The other's actually got harder prompts. Make sure and check out CdnChrgr, lothcat1138, and Ridger.
This is Ridger's fanfic debut, so go check him and be the encouraging little community that you guys tend to be.
If you're curious to know what I've been up to these days, you can go check out my website michaelfkane and add the dot com on the end. You can read my debut novel for free there. Check it out and say hi if you give it a read.
Thanks!