Star Wars Rebels: Hera & Kanan

Chapter Eighteen

One Year After A New Dawn

In the five months since leaving Lothal, Kanan had done little more than drink and wander, taking mostly unpleasant jobs here and there to fund the drinking. His latest job was his least favorite, which was really saying something: he'd been conscripted into bounty hunting to pay off a rather large gambling debt acquired on Sel Zonn Station.

He'd been a bounty hunter before; Kanan had tried just about every job the galaxy had to offer, short of working for the Empire. The bounties were usually excellent- one good job could bring in enough credits for months of wandering and drinking- but he'd always found the rest of it distasteful. Now, it seemed even worse. And it certainly didn't help that he wasn't actually earning any credits for his efforts.

On the upside, he only had one more job to do, and then his debt would be paid off to the lousy cheating sleemo who'd roped him into this madness in the first place. The cheating sleemo in question was one Ino Dravik, a professional gambler who traveled around to the galaxy's many casinos, taking everyone's money as he went. The casinos tolerated his obnoxious behavior and his cheating because he brought in business. Kanan had had a rather disagreeable run-in with him at Sel Zonn's casino, The Credit Chip, after spending many hours drinking at Gundark's Cantina. His recollection of the evening in question was, needless to say, hazy. He remembered that he'd loudly accused Dravik of cheating, shortly followed by an extended altercation with Dravik's bodyguard, a man who was twice as broad and tall as Kanan. The last thing Kanan remembered from that night was the bodyguard's extremely large fist making a rapid approach towards his face.

He'd woken up busted-face-down on the floor of an expensive hotel suite. As it turned out, Dravik was impressed with him, but not so impressed that he was above threatening to have him killed. Kanan didn't have the credits to pay off his losses to Dravik and, conveniently, Dravik had some dirty work that needed to be done and had found a man who could (almost) withstand a beating from a giant.

All of this was, of course, terrible. Kanan's show with the giant bodyguard was terrible; no human male would have lasted so long against a monstrosity like that, especially not in a spectacularly inebriated state. Luckily, no one seemed to be all that suspicious about it, likely owing to the fact that most of the spectators that night had also been spectacularly drunk. Also terrible: being conscripted into the service of a cheating piece of space trash like Ino Dravik. Kanan could imagine Hera's scowl of disapproval.

He wondered, as he often did, where she was and what she was doing.

He'd realized almost immediately that he'd made a mistake in leaving her. As time passed, the enormity of the mistake only grew in his mind. But he still stood by his reasons for doing so, and he figured that she was probably mad at him now, too- so he kept putting distance between them. Looking back on it, he couldn't even believe he left her the way he did, with hardly any warning. She was probably furious with him. She'd have every right to be.

Even so, he debated with himself every day about going back, and each time, he talked himself out of it. What if she wasn't even on Lothal anymore? How could he ever hope to find her? Prior to leaving, Kanan had never given much real thought to the possibility of never seeing Hera again; at the time, it had been unimaginable. But now, he had to face the reality of the situation, and it made him feel worse than almost anything had ever made him feel.

Drinking didn't help much, but it was something. He gave his current glass of alcohol a wink and friendly tap with his finger; it was doing a fine job of getting him good and drunk.

"You're full of self-doubt," a woman's voice said, loudly enough to be heard over the noise the so-called band was producing. Kanan didn't care for Rodian music.