Chapter Text
[Image description: The Rebel C1 astromech droid known as Chopper standing triumphantly on top of a pile of various Imperial Trooper helmets in front of a stylised sunrise. Above him is the fire-bird symbol of the Rebellion in red, while underneath the pyramid of helmets is the slogan, “THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS”.]
- Graffiti found in the Capital on Lothal, collected by Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo. Presumed to be the work of Sabine Wren.
It takes Zeb ages to get the red powder out of his fur. The damn stuff has worked its way into every crevice and cranny so deeply that some of the pilots have taken to calling him ‘Rusty’. As far as he’s concerned, if he never sees that stupid ship again it’ll be too soon. Unfortunately, Kallus has somehow come away from the whole disaster with some sort of attachment to the Resistance. He’s actually trying to fix up and repaint the damn thing, for kark’s sake. On the one hand, it gets him away from hunching over a datapad all day; on the other....
"Ya should rename it the Hell Ship," grumbles Zeb one afternoon after they've both finished work.
"Thank you, Garazeb," sighs Kallus, who's half buried in the under-wiring with a holo repair manual and a laser spanner. "I'll keep that suggestion in mind."
“Or the Ugly Bastard,” adds Zeb, slapping his hand against the hull. The red stripes aren’t too bad, but combined with the overall shape of the ship and the way it seems to sit in the open space of the Yavin base’s landing field with all the grace of a baby Hutt… well, it’s ugly. “That’ll do nicely.”
“Will it now.”
Zeb ignores the obvious sarcasm in favour of commenting: “Yer trouble, Kallus, yannow that? That’s two nearly deadly situations ya’ve gotten me into so far. Two!”
“Mm,” hums Kallus. He doesn’t sound convinced. “I think I’ve gotten you into a lot more than that, actually, but the last two times weren’t deliberate on my part. You had the choice to come on that mission. In theory, you also had the choice to enter that escape pod. You could have avoided any threat to your life.”
“Honour ain’t a choice.” He folds his arms and switches to a lighter, easier topic of conversation. “Now fixing up this death trap, that is a choice. Pretty crazy one if ya ask me.”
Kallus emerges from his deep pit of wires, covered in grease marks from the waist up: he’s taken off his jacket and shirt, leaving only a white under-shirt. Not very practical – it’s covered in stains. He looks so much different from the uptight, perfectly neat, cruel Imperial that once nearly killed Zeb that Zeb hardly recognises him. It doesn’t help that his hair looks so much softer and prettier now that – aw, karabast.
“I was just thinking,” he says, completely ignorant of Zeb’s small internal crisis, “it would be nice to give her a new lease on life. Fix the little dents, clean the mess inside, give her a better paint job. Rehabilitate her. She’s been a mercenary ship all this time. I think it’s quite poetic for her to become a Rebel.”
Aw, kriffing hells. He’s so earnest about it, too. The little smile on his face when he talks about the damn thing is too much. Zeb’s ears flutter despite all his efforts to the contrary: he really hopes Kallus doesn’t know too much about Lasat body language.
“Anyway,” he adds, “that’s why if I do rename her, I want her to have a nice name. Something pretty.”
“Right,” croaks Zeb. “Pretty.”
Kriff, kark, karabast, and fuck.
Kanan, Ezra, and Sabine arrive back on base not long after that, looking as beat up as Zeb would expect from spending any time on Mandalore. But, well, they’re all back in one piece, and Zeb is sure Hera will be happy to see everyone when she gets back from her mission.
“You gotta tell us everything,” Zeb says to Kanan, slapping him on the back. “Did ya beat up loadsa bucketheads?”
“A few,” replies Kanan. He leans up to murmur in Zeb’s ear: “Sabine had to deal with a lot of stuff. Just… be patient with her, okay?”
Zeb glances over at Sabine: she looks relatively okay, but now that he really takes notice, he can see the tiredness in her eyes as she greets some of her on-base friends. “What happened?”
“Remember what she’s told us about why she left the Empire..?”
Zeb remembers. He was there when Sabine joined the crew, as much of a mess as any of them; he remembers the raw conversations they had when she was finally ready to talk, the late nights, the pain. Part of his bond with her, part of why they get each other, is the shared guilt and trauma over failing their people, of seeing their family and friends destroyed by weapons that should never have existed.
“I’ll keep an eye on ‘er,” he nods.
“What about you?” Kanan adds, after a moment. “Everything going well down here?”
Zeb shrugs. “Oh, yeah, pretty borin’ really. But I should tell ya about the mission Kallus brought me on to get that ship over there…”
“Yes, how is Kallus, by the way?” Kanan gives Zeb what would be a piercing look if he weren’t blind. “Are you still okay with having him around, given his past?”
“Erm -”
Luckily, Zeb is spared having to say anything at all about Kallus by Chopper, who trundles through with his usual mulish sense of entitlement, warbling loudly, towards where Kallus himself is watching the kids with a wistful sort of expression. He makes damn sure to bash Zeb on the legs while he’s at it, of course.
“Ow! What’s he saying?” Zeb asks. “Anyone?”
“He says his kill count is up by – really, Chopper? That many?” Kallus raises his eyebrow. “By frankly genocidal levels.”
Chopper adds a few menacing warbles, and Dee-Four raises their hand. “He also says to remind you that you will be the first against the wall when the droid revolution comes. I as a fellow droid most heartily disagree. According to my calculations, you will be at least the two thousand, five-hundred and sixty seventh.”
“Oh, just that?” Zeb pats Chopper’s head cheerfully. “I missed ya too, buddy.”
Chopper does that thing where Zeb is sure he’s glaring and turns to Kallus. “Chop-chop-whirr-beep?”
“Yes, well…” Kallus shrugs and smiles at Chopper. “I suppose I reprogrammed myself, really. With some help from Garazeb, of course.”
“Blorp-whop?”
“Yes, organics can do that.”
Zeb snorts. “Why d’jou ask, Chopper? Interested in tryin’ it for yourself?”
Chopper makes an offended and rather haughty series of noises.
“He says he’s perfect the way he is,” translates Kallus.
“Of course he does.”