Never Too Late (A SWR Fanfic)

Part 1, Chapter 1: A Faithful Night

Kari's P.O.V.

9 years later....

I bring my binoculars up to my eyes and look at the imperial complex. A few TIE fighters circle around the building, I focus on a probe and count how many there are. I lower the device from my face, four. Easy enough.

"What we got?" I look over and see my partner, Riley, walk over.

I glance at her, "just four probes."

She brushes her fingers through the purple bangs hanging over her right eye, "should be easy. What's the plan?" She's bald, except for the bangs. She has an entirely black outfit, black leather jacket, tank top, pants, and boots. And she has brown eyes.

I put my binoculars in my side bag and turn to her, "do you still have the blaster you made?"

She laughs, patting her black leather jacket, "never leave home without it."

I nod at her, "good." I turn my head to look back at the complex, "because from the looks of things we're gonna need more than just one weapon if we're going to get what we need."

Something catches my eye and I look back to the complex and see at least three rows of stormtroopers walking from the entrance. I groan, rolling my blue eyes, "great. Looks like we're going to have to be stealthy if we're gonna pull this off."

She looks at me, "and how do you suggest we do that?"

I bring my binoculars back up to my eyes and look for our entrance. I spot a vent cover on the side of the building, "there." I say, handing her the binoculars, she looks through them.

I stand up, "that's our way in."

She nods, standing up as well. We run to the complex, keeping our stealth. A TIE fighter's light almost spots Riley but she hides behind a pillar just in time. We get to the vent cover and she pries it from the wall.

She gestures inside, "after you."

I roll my eyes at her and crawl inside the vent. I hear her come in behind me and we start crawling.

"Little bit of a tight fit, don't you think?" She asks as she huffs.

We keep going. "Put your claustrophobia aside and focus." I say. I blow a piece of my brown hair out of my eyes.

We come over a vent cover and I stop, looking down. I see metal crates in piles here and there but I pay no attention to that. I spot some metal crates stacked on top of each other with high powered locks on the sides, "found them." I mutter. I take out my blaster and blast the cover off.

"Hope no one heard that." I hear Riley mutter.

I jump down to the ground and check to see if the coast is clear. I don't see any stormtroopers so I call up to Riley, "all clear!" She drops down and we start our 'robbery'. I open a crate and see it's full of the cargo we came to get. "Hey Riley!"

She looks over from peeking in a crate full of what looks like to be medical supplies. "What?"

I point into the crate, "I found the cargo." She walks over and looks into the crate, "good. Now let's get out of here before-" before she can finish her sentence out of the corner of my eye I see a laser rapidly approaching us.

"Get down!" I shout. We duck and hide behind the crate for cover. The laser almost hits my shoulder as we duck. I get my blaster out and prepare to fire at the Stormtroopers, I see Riley doing the same.

"Show yourselves!" I hear a man shout.

I come out from my cover and blast in the direction of the voice. My eyes widen slightly at the appearance of the man, he's not a Stormtrooper. He's wearing green clothes and dark green shoulder armor with a white symbol on it.

I'm blasted at again by a different source so I duck back behind the crate. Riley goes up and shoots at a source I can't see. When she comes back down I ask, "how many are there?"

"Four. From what I can see." She replies before going up and shooting again. She comes down after firing multiple shots. "What's the plan now hot shot?"

"I'm working on it!" I say to her. I come up and look for a target, I see the tip of a head poking out from behind a crate and I fire a warning shot at it. It flies a few inches above the head before making contact with a wall.

The owner of the head comes up and dark blue eyes meet mine. The owner of the eyes looks my age, he has bluish black hair and it looks like he's wearing orange clothes. I don't know why, but I hesitate and it looks like the boy does too.

Riley snaps me out of my trance, "what're you doing stupid?!" She pulls me back down behind the crate. She shoots me a glare, "why didn't you fire!?"

I shrug, "I don't know." She goes back up and fires again.

She comes back down as a laser is blasted at her, "unless you want the cargo to get damaged you better come up with a plan!"

"I've got one!" She reloads her blaster, "do you still have those smoke bombs?" I ask her. She nods, "yeah. Why?"

"Just follow my lead." I say, she nods in response.

I come out from behind the crate and stand up, "we surrender!" I shout, putting my hands up and in doing so earning a surprised look from Riley. But she remembers my previous instruction and stands up as well, copying my actions.

The people come out from their hiding places. I take in their appearances. The man I first saw has brown hair and a small goatee, his green eyes give off the energy of a leader. There's a girl in mandalorian armor, which has colorful pain splatters all over it. I can't see her face because she's wearing a helmet. There's a purple lasat wearing green clothes with what I'm guessing to be a large rifle strapped to his back. Finally my eyes land land on the boy, he's wearing orange clothes, with gloves and a piece of armor over his right shin.

"Who are you people?" The leader asks us.

"Depends, who's asking?" I stall, giving Riley time to ready her smoke bombs. I notice out of the corner of my eye she's carefully moving her fingers to her bag in which she keeps the smoke bombs in.

They don't seem to notice Riley's movements, seeing as how they're focused on me. "Who are you? Imperials?" I question.

The boy glances at the leader. The leader shakes his head, "no." He answers plainly.

Riley looks at me, signaling she's ready. I look at them, "thieves?" They don't respond. I notice that the girl with the helmet moves her gaze to Riley.

It's now or never.

She seems to become aware of our plan, "Kanan!" She shouts.

"Now Riley!" I shout at the same time. In the blink of an eye the area is filled with smoke. The alarms flare and red lights flash through the air. I hold my breath and move behind us to the cargo. Riley is trying to move the whole crate. I grab her arm and shake my head, I grab three of the blasters. Riley does the same and we move out of the smoke.

Riley climbs up a wall to a vent cover before disappearing inside. I hear coughing getting closer to me and I turn to see the boy emerging from the smoke. He looks at me as he gains his breath back.

I smirk at him and give him a wink before climbing up the wall and disappearing from his view through the vent.