STAR WARS REBELS || Her Wings Of Fire

CHAPTER SEVEN: Only She Would Know

*PLEASE READ THE UNDERLINED PART OF THE AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END IF YOU DON'T USUALLY READ IT. IT'S IMPORTANT.*

*Also, the images at the top are concept art for Sorena's helmet design. I'll post the full picture sometime later today if I have time.*

This day was probably going to go down as the worst every in the history of the Rebellion, as far as Hera was concerned. Although she was far from pessimistic – that was Kanan's job – the odds were really stacked against them this time.

First, they'd made the mistake of trusting Minister Tua, who had betrayed them. Then, they'd been blasted out of the sky by an AT-AT. Next, they had run to Ezra's childhood home to regroup and that had been blown up. (She still wasn't sure if Ezra was all right – it was one of the last memories he had of his parents.)

And now, she was on her way into an Imperial complex, squished into a crate on an antigrav platform with almost no room to move – Sabine, Teri and Hera herself had all crowded into one rather than someone share with Zeb. Chopper, who had no sense of smell and therefore no such reservations, was with him.

A few moments later, she felt the crate tilt as Ezra, who was pushing them, rounded a corner, and then another as they were pulled back through a doorway. As they slowed to a halt, Teri's grey eyes met hers, and they lifted the cover from their crate and got out.

The next thing she knew, the lid on the crate alongside them flew off and Zeb jumped out, yelling incomprehensibly and gasping for breath.

"Zeb, will you be quiet?" she asked softly. She didn't really have the energy or the patience to scold him more thoroughly.

"What, I need to breathe!" The big Lasat massaged his throat for a moment before speaking again. "Have you smelled me?"

Hera opened her mouth to say something to get him to quiet down, but Teri was not about to let such an opportunity pass him by.

"You know," he said, as if speaking to a small child, "there's this thing called a 'fresher'. And then there's this other thing called 'deodorizing soap'. This might be a revolutionary concept for you and hard to grasp, but when you put them together on a regular basis, the smell simply... goes away."

Ezra and Sabine snickered, and Hera was pretty sure Kanan was grinning under his bucket-head helmet too. Zeb, choosing to be dignified about the fact that he had been one-upped by the informant, simply huffed and rolled his eyes.

Although the events of the day had clearly set Teri edge, the taunt brought a different side of him to light. It made him seem less serious; made it easier to imagine what he had been like before life and its trials had caught up to him.

"Huh, don't think it matters if you're noisy," said Sabine, walking back from the door. "There's nobody around. This was a good plan."

Kanan came back into view, taking off his helmet. "Of course it was a good plan – we came up with it!"

"This way!" Ezra called, starting to run.

They were all about to take off after him when a series of angry warbles and bleeps came from the crate. Hera sighed, pointing back behind her. "Will somebody get Chopper...!"

"For your information, you're quite lucky these kids don't know what half your audio binary subroutines mean," Teri said, addressing the droid. "Also, what you say is what you are, potty mouth. You're the chi'fa d'har kippfa, not me."

That sounded like Togruti, but Hera didn't know what it meant, or what the translation in Basic was. And, if the expression on Kanan's face said anything, she wasn't sure she wanted to.