Jedi Fugitive (The Bad Batch)

16

Astera:

"Dank farrik!" I thumped the underside of the broken ship, wheeling out from underneath it. The craft was in further disarray than I thought. With the Batch gone on another run for Cid - she'd assigned me another job transporting spice containers, one that had taken me  less than a rotation despite the messy business with its buyers - and Cid actually sticking around to watch her parlour, I'd finally had time to properly inspect the ship, getting to the areas I couldn't after I'd been shot.

Missing a capacitor, naviscope array misaligned, one parallax inverter shot to hell. My jaw clenched the longer the list went on. Even the shield generator was fried. At least I could fix most of the damage. But until I could find a replacement for the flight stabiliser, the ship was going nowhere.

The air had been hotter than I expected today; sweat had already begun to bead underneath my helmet; I pulled it off, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead and pushing back the loose strands of dark hair that had fallen from the braided hairstyle I kept it in.

The helmet landed beside me in the dirt; it was too stuffy under the ship to keep working with it on. No one would recognise me anyway, the only group who could were far off this planet for the time being.

Realigning the naviscope array was an easy fix; the parallax inverters took more work, but at least I could get to the signature key to modify it. I likely wasn't going to need to change the signature anytime soon, but it would be a good idea just in case.

"Let's go, Mandie! I got another assignment for you and the boys in black."

I scowled at Cid's nickname, rolling myself out from under the ship again, spare capacitor still in hand. "I'm busy, Cid."

She folded her arms, completely unsympathetic. "Thought you already looked at your ship."

"I did. Couldn't look at everything though. Kinda hard to get underneath a ship when you've got a hole in your side."

"You got ten minutes." She stomped off, grumbling about her generosity being taken advantage of. I glared after her retreating back for a few more moments before leaning back and rolling under the ship again, slotting the capacitor into the gap in the ship.

"Ten minutes, my ass," I muttered to myself, holding the welding torch to the disconnected wires. "She's lucky that Anakin taught me mechanics."

"Ashe, I'm back!" I tensed at Omega's greeting, ignoring the pang that went through me at the thought of Anakin's name and the welder gripped tight in my hand. I'd left my helmet out there. She better be by herself. I didn't want to keep myself under the ship for much longer.

"Are you alone?" I called out cautiously, turning off the welding torch so I could hear her properly.

"Yeah," came the distant reply. I relaxed, sparks from the welder beginning to fly again as I held it back to the capacitor.

"How was the mission?" I asked from the ship's underbelly.

"It was crazy! Echo almost fell into a pit of snakes." She sat cross-legged next to my feet, peering under the ship to get a look at me. "What're you working on?"

"Fixing my ship. Some parts were damaged when I crash landed here."

"Can I help?" I saw her shift closer out of the corner of my eye. Sparks flew from my welding torch, fusing the final set of wires to the capacitor.

"I appreciate the offer, Omega, but I'm already done." I pushed myself out from under the ship once again, throwing the welding torch on top of the pile of tools by the ship. "As done as I can be anyway."