Hera, Ezra, and Sabine slid down the ladder into the lounge of the Ghost and were greeted by the rest of the crew.
"Is everyone okay?" Kanan asked as Sabine flopped onto one of the seats in frustration.
"Yeah, everyone's fine, but I scraped the Phantom's underbelly." Hera replied, a hint of frustration in her tone.
"You?" Lexie raised an eyebrow playfully, causing a grin to break across Hera's face.
"It was somewhat unavoidable once Kanan's plan went south." Hera shot Kanan a look and Lexie shook her head, feigning disappointment as she looked at the other Jedi.
"Ah, there we go," Kanan sighed, "knew there had to be a way this was my fault."
"Everything manages to be your fault." Echo patted his shoulder as she walked past him to leave the lounge.
"And you were right." Hera looked over her shoulder at Echo and Ezra who had both gone to leave. "Echo, I'll need the Phantom ready to pick up the supplies from Fulcrum. Adjust the steering and run a diagnostic, Chopper and Ezra will help you fix any problems you find."
Echo turned around quickly. "Have you met them?! They do nothing but make problems worse!"
"Hey!" Ezra butted in loudly.
"You do!"
"Enough!" Hera said before Ezra could retort. "I'm leaving soon, so get to it."
Ezra and Echo glared at each other as they made their way towards the ladder that lead to the Phantom.
"Ladies first." Ezra hissed scathingly.
"Oh, then you should go first," Echo stepped back and motioned for him to go first. "Didn't mean to be in your way."
"Thank you!" Lexie slid past them both, heading to the cockpit. "And stop flirting." She muttered to Echo as she passed.
"Shut up, Lexie!" Echo yelled after her then turned back to Ezra. "Just go up."
The two worked in silence for a while, Ezra running the diagnostic while Echo adjusted the steering.
"Hey, what do you have against me?" Ezra asked, finally breaking the silence.
Echo stayed quiet for a minute, tightening a bolt. "Nothing, really." She replied. "Just never had anyone my age around before." She stood up and rested her arms on the floor of the Phantom. "I guess I don't really mean to come to come off so rude it just happens, and you say crap back, so it just goes like that."
Ezra looked down at her. "I don't hate you."
A small smile quirked the edges of Echo's lips. "Never said you did, but glad to know. I don't hate you either, Ez."
He glanced back at the diagnostic screen. "This is taking forever, did you finish?"
"Well, Hera was right, steerings way out of wack." She ducked back down into the repair duct. "I'm almost done, though."
He looked back to check the still running diagnostic. "There we go, the uh, life support filters need cleansing."
"Chop, once I'm out, purge them." Echo called and Chopper went to do it immediately. "Alright, I'm done." She tossed her wrench back up and was met with smoke coming from the support filters.
Ezra couldn't help the small laugh that came out as Echo pushed herself up into the Phantom, coughing. "Well-well, steering and life support are back in working order."
"I told you to wait till I was out." She glared at Chopper who just chittered.
Ezra picked up her discarded wrench and tossed it at Chopper. It hit the droid with a dull clang and he picked it up, throwing it back at Ezra who narrowly avoided it.
"Hey, knock it off!" Echo snapped. "We're not done, the diagnostics are still-"
"You can run a diagnostic on Chopper when I'm done!" Ezra called, chasing Chopper out of the Phantom.
Echo groaned, following them out and into the hallway to the cockpit.
"Just leave him," she pulled Ezra off of Chopper by the collar of his jacket and he raised the wrench to hit the droid just as the door opened, making him hide it behind his back.
"I take it you finished the repairs?" Hera asked, raising at eyebrow.
"Yup," Echo nodded and grabbed the wrench from Ezra, letting go of his collar in the process. "Steering was off, but I fixed it." Chopper beeped.
"And life support filters needed purging, which we also did." Ezra added and Chopper chittered and ran into him, then zapped Echo before rolling away.
"Chopper, go to hell!" She yelled, going after him, Ezra quick on the tails.
They made it into the lounge where Kanan, Lexie and, Zeb all sat. Chopper went to take refuge next to Kanan, chirping at the two chasing him.
"Don't kill the droid." Lexie raised a hand, making them both stop. "He's good for some things."
"Not a lot." Echo crossed her arms, glaring at the orange rust bucket.
"Echo, we need you to go on a supply run." Kanan said, glancing down at a holopad he was holding.
"You go, I just fixed the Phantom!" She protested. "Besides, Hera and Sabine are on a supply run!"
"Lexie's going." Kanan added, hoping that it might convince her.
"Oh, well, hey, if it's Lexie then sure." She shrugged and sat down next to Lexie. "What are we getting?"
"Food, mostly." Lexie replied. "Sabine and Hera took the Phantom so they're dropping us on Lothal then doing who knows what, not helping that's for sure."
"You said you and Echo could handle it?" Zeb raised his arms in confusion.
"Well, yeah, we can." Lexie shook her head. "Never mind."
- - - - - - - - -
The Ghost touched down on Lothal near the city Kothal. Echo and Lexie got off with the list of supplies they needed.
"Be back soon." Kanan called, waving to. "And don't mess anything up.
"Us?" Lexie shook her head. "Never." As soon as she turned to Echo she quickly muttered, "always."
"Nah, I think we're good at keeping disasters at a minimum." Echo shrugged. "We're better than those three, at least."
"Fair enough." Lexie agreed as they entered the town.
Echo took the holopad from Lexie and glanced down at the list. "Do we have enough credits for all this stuff?"
"We have enough." Lexie grimaced. "Hera and Sabine's run didn't involve any credits so we took most of them. It'll be enough to cover what food we need and leave enough for the next fuel run we have to do if we haven't gotten a job by then."
"Living on a paycheck." Echo muttered as they passed by vender's stands.
"That is kind of what we signed up for when we joined the crew." Lexie stopped to look at the food on someone's stand.
"No, I don't think I did." Echo stopped next to her. "Sure it was better than what I was living off of but I'm hungrier now than I was then."
"We'll take three of these." Lexie said to the owner of the stand and handed him the credits. The girls picked up three fruits and tossed them into a bag, then continued down the street.
"Hey, what was your life like before you joined the crew?" Echo asked while they looked at stands.
"Contracted assassin." She replied casually.
"What?" Echo stopped and stared at her. "You were a what?"
"I worked for this guy and I had like a code name and everything, not my finest couple of years." Lexie shrugged.
"That was..."
"Unexpected?"
"Yes."
"Kanan kind of had the same reaction." She exchanged credits for some more food and tossed it into a bag. "What about you?"
"Not as cool as you that's for sure." Echo hoisted the bag over her shoulder. "I was apart of a crew for a couple years and they taught me ship mechanics. Then they kinda just dumped me here about four ago."
"They just left?" Lexie raised an eyebrow. "You were what? Eleven?"
"Yup." She nodded. "Then some family like took me in and then Kanan found me and may I say, he never gave me like a contract to sign telling me that I would be hungry a lot."
Lexie couldn't help the laugh that came out. "He didn't give me a contract either."
"What a rip-off." Echo sighed disappointedly.
Her grip on their bag of supplies had loosened slightly and she suddenly felt it slip out of her hand.
"What the hell?" She turned around, pulling on Lexie's sleeve in the process. "Lexie!"
"Did they just steal our stuff?!" Lexie clipped the holopad onto her belt and took off after the two people booking it away from them, Echo hot on her heels.
The chase went on for some time, running through alleyways between buildings and running into a bunch of unsuspecting people. When the group took a turn down an alley, Lexie reached her hand out and sent a stack of boxes toppling over, stopping the two thieves.
They stopped and turned around to look at Lexie and Echo.
"Our food, we bought it, give it back." Echo said, taking tentative steps towards them, one hand on her blaster.
"Our food, we stole it." The boy replied, holding the bag close to his body.
"That's not how life works!" Lexie shot back.
"That's how thievery works." The other thief, a white haired girl with pointed ears, most likely an elf, stated.
"Go steal from someone else, Mullet!" Echo pulled out her blaster and pointed it towards the boy.
"No one else had anything good!" He pulled out his own blaster and pointed it towards Lexie.
"I didn't call you Mullet, she did!" Lexie pointed at Echo.
"Don't point you blaster at her, she's unarmed!" The girl snapped. "Point it at the one with the blaster if anything."
"Fine!" He redirected his aim to Echo.
"Can we just put the blasters away?" Lexie asked, shooting a pointed look at Echo who slowly put hers back in it's holster while the boy did the same. "You can have some of the food if you just come back to our ship, we have to get at least some of it back to our crew."
The two thieves exchanged a look. "Fine." The girl said.
- - - - - - - - -
The four arrived back at the spot where the Ghost had dropped them off a little while later, after finishing the run and exchanging names with the thieves, Elara and J'sonn, but he went by Jace.
The rest of the crew sat on the ramp looking slightly disheveled. Sabine and Hera had returned and Hera looked slightly annoyed but the look was quickly covered by shock at the sight of two more people with them.
"Before you say anything, they tried to steal our food so we said they could come and get some food without having to steal it." Lexie said, tossing the bag to the others and Kanan caught it.
"That's fair." He opened the bag. "I don't have a problem with it."
"What is it with you guys and picking people up off the streets?" Hera asked with a small sigh. Ezra and Echo looked at each other as she spoke and tried to hold back the grins that were forming. "Also, Echo, we about got killed because the Phantom wasn't fixed."
"Ezra ran the diagnostics." She pointed to him quickly and his eyes widened.
"You're the mechanic!" He said back. "That's not totally my fault!"
"I just want it fixed." Hera rubbed the bridge of her nose.
"That's Hera." Lexie said in an undertone to Jace and Elara as Hera headed inside the ship. "Ponytail guy is Kanan, the droid is Chopper, and that's Zeb and that's Ezra." She gestured to Zeb and Ezra. "Hey guys," everyone's attentions snapped to Lexie. "These are Jace and Elara."
"Nice to meet you." Elara said, slightly awkwardly while Jace raised a hand in greeting before stuffing it back into his pocket.
"Why don't you guys come inside?" Kanan offered, standing up. "Sit down and eat, it'll be nicer than throwing stuff at you and sending you away."
Jace and Elara glanced at each other before shrugging.
"Why not?"