fandomtownies | Luke's, Sunday

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Luke's, Sunday

Okay, Kanan had been given homework last weekend, sort of. He was supposed to find and eat SweeTarts candy and Red Bull. He'd gotten his hand on the candy halfway through the week, had tried it, and had decided it wasn't half bad.

He came into work today with a can of Red Bull, and hadn't quite gotten around to trying it yet. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but the cook was apparently some kind of small fluffy nerf creature and they were dangerously low on what some locals had come to consider their Sunday morning pancake habit. Between himself and the dishwasher, they managed to actually get a good start on working up a decent pancake reserve, and the Red Bull was left sitting on the front counter, untouched but not forgotten.

By the time Kanan got back into the dining room, the busboy had hidden it. The last thing anybody needed was Kanan all buzzed on energy drink.

[OOC: Open, heck with OCD again this week!]

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Summer pranced in sometime during the afternoon, made a beeline for the counter, and set her big heavy backpack into a stool with a thud before sitting on one herself. And she got right into it like she herself might have had a few Red Bulls, but she hadn't, it was just natural teen girl exuberance.

"Did you try it, did you try it??"

"I tried the candy," Kanan laughed. Her enthusiasm was infectious, so help him. "I had a can of the drink here with me, set it down on the counter to help in the kitchen for a bit, and it vanished, though. Not sure what's up with that."

Curses, busboy.

"That's....weird," said Summer, frowning at the counter from which the drink supposedly disappeared as if accusing it slightly. Her disgruntled consideration quickly passed, though, and she brightened again. "But it's okay! I have some!"

She didn't even hesitate to dive into her backpack and fish out one of the few cans she had in there along with all the bursting books and notes. Because, listen, studying about space and government and tracing supply lines and trying to figure out who all might have survived a wedding massacre and how to find them and how to get back to her universe with Portalocity without being caught was kind of boring, actually? And she needed all the help she could get going through it.

"Here, just have one of mine."

Take that, busboys.

Kanan was going to smirk and ignore the agonized wail of the busboy from the kitchen.

"Hey, thanks," he said, reaching for the can. "Now, let's see if this is anything like that candy, huh?"

You were basically giving stims to a secret Jedi, Summer. This was probably going to be a learning experience for all involved.

It'll be fun! Summer, who had probably already had a little too much herself, bounced a little where she sat, eager to see that first reaction. No hiding or lying about his first thoughts when she was sitting right there, just watching, right?

No hiding or lying! Well, no more than usual, anyway. Kanan smirked at that bounce, opened the can, and lifted it into the air.

"Here goes nothing," he announced, and then knocked it back.

And blinked. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, really, but he was going to need another mouthful before he could decide what had just happened inside his mouth, here.

Edited 2017-05-21 17:22 (UTC)

He didn't straight up spit it out; that was a good thing. He also didn't grimace; more good signs. "Weeellllllll?" Summer wheedled. "How is it?"

Kanan paused to consider for a moment, and then pulled another mouthful.

"Not bad," he decided, then broke into a grin. "You can practically taste the kick."

It was a bit like how he imagined glitterstim tasted.

Edited 2017-05-21 18:57 (UTC)

"Success!"

Success at exactly what, Summer? Nothing good, probably. "Now imagine that mixed with vodka, and you're good to go. Don't tell me I'll have to introduce you to vodka, too."

"Vodka, I know," Kanan chuckled. "And now I'm picturing the two mixed."

He took another swig.

"Starting to see why you were so done in last week, though."

Edited 2017-05-21 19:56 (UTC)

"Yeaaaah," Summer had the decency to look a little bit embarrassed. "Worth it. Not this week, though. Complete opposite. I was doing...." She wrinkled her nose distastefully. "...research. which reminds me, I have news, if you havent heard already, but first, can I get a chicken sandwich with onion rings?"

Cause you can't just go to a diner and not get food. Who does that?

"You can definitely get a chicken sandwich with onion rings," Kanan agreed, waving a hand into the kitchen. The cook was currently a sheep, but the dishwasher seemed to have everything under control. "Anything to drink with that, or did you bring your own?"

He followed that up, of course, with another swig of Red Bull.

Summer was not smirking evilly with each sip he took, really! She was just in an...evilly good mood, for unrelated reasons...

"I...should have some water," Summer decided with a nod. "When my body and brain comes down from the sugar-rush, they will thank me."

"Water it is," Kanan replied, raising an eyebrow and going to run her a glass of icewater. What was that smirk about, anyway? "So, this news of yours is good news, I take it?"

"Very good news!" Summer confirmed, bouncing some more. "I met your friend," still wasn't convinced it was just friendship or that it should be just friendship, "Hera the other day, and she's agree to help me out with some maps so I can better pinpoint the location of the Galactic Federation prison where they're holding my grampa!"

Someone was feeling a bit looser with information in the course of these past couple weeks...

Yeah, Fandom had a funny way of doing that. Kanan had developed a habit of talking about his days in the war with Steve, himself, which was something he'd never done before.

He did also clear his throat a little, maybe a touch awkwardly, because the way Summer said 'friend' there was not lost on him.

"Maps, huh? Starmaps, you mean? Of this galaxy?"

"Nope!" Summer said happily. "My galaxy. Which, I mean, okay, this galaxy is kind of my galaxy, but not really. My universe, I guess would be a better way to say it. I went to the library, and they actually had some books on the Galactic Federation," she gestured toward the backpack in the seat beside her, "including maps of the parts of my universe they control, which didn't include Earth, because they're a little old, but still enough to help me try to figure out at least where I want to go. She says she can take some of these maps and try to construct a holo out of them so it would be easier to figure out just where they might be putting a prison, which we believe is probably a space station of some sort, we just don't know where."

Kanan reached up a hand to scratch thoughtfully at his beard.

"Not bad," he decided. "And you have those books here with you? There must be cross-sections from at least a few angles, if Hera thinks she can reverse engineer a holo from paper."

Oh, paper. So novel.

Cross-sections. Reverse engineer a holo. Man. She really did love all this crazy tech stuff, even if she sometimes felt it was way beyond her reach.

"I've made some photocopies," Summer said, slipping them out, in a nice bright pink folder with a horse and butterflies on it. "Would you like to see?"

Oh, hey, that was definitely a folder belonging to a teenager, right there. Kanan broke into a little grin, which he hid mostly successfully with another mouthful of Red Bull, and then held out his hand for the folder.

"Sure," he said, "let's see what we can see. You said they have Federation space marked off on them?"

"No, it's all Federation space," Summer corrected. "They control, like, a billion different planets, so it's waaaay bigger than I expected. Like, I didn't even know this existed half a year ago, but here we are. The marked areas are the ones I was thinking the prison might be located. Not too close to important planets in case something goes wrong, but still close enough that they can get personnel in and out quickly. Places that would be difficult to reach, like beyond asteroid belts or other weird things. And, recently added by Hera's suggestion, a few based on supply lines, like, what does a prison need and where could they get them from and what are likely paths for it to take? What do they need a lot of and what planets can provide it, that sort of thing."

She was very busy this weekend.

Clearly. Kanan pursed his lips a little, and then nodded as he opened the folder and flipped through the photocopies.

Yeah, flat starmaps were kind of useless, but this did give him a decent idea of just how much space they were going to have to narrow down, still.

"Well, asteroid belts wouldn't be any problem for Hera to navigate around," he mused. "She's an even better pilot than I am. Which is probably for the best. The Ghost is much more comfortable to travel in than the Escape."

Kanan's ship was basically a one-seater. Hera's ship was a modified freighter. So.

"I'm sure either of your ships are still way better than my grampa's," Summer said, because not only was that thing a real piece of junk, but it was also a bit of a sadistic fuck to boot. She leaned forward a little, peeking at the papers as Kanan flipped through them. And the whole thing just made her feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside, because even though she was facing this big scary thing, there were people here that seemed to not even think twice about helping her and she knew, she just knew, they were genuine about it, too. Well, maybe not, but she preferred to be optimistic. "It's really great that I ran into her, and that both of you have been so cool about helping."

Kanan gave Summer a wry little smile. To be entirely honest, even he was a bit surprised that he was so willing to get involved in this. He had Hera to thank for at least some of that. And his time spent on the island. He'd spent the past half a decade training himself to very pointedly not get involved, and now here he was with the disassembled components to a lightsaber on his belt, looking over starmaps and talking about staging some kind of prison break.

Clearly he'd lost his kriffing mind.

"It's easier, coming at it from the outside," he admitted. "I'm guessing Hera probably told you a little bit about what's going on in our own galaxy, then?"

Edited 2017-05-22 00:02 (UTC)

"A little bit," Summer said, "but not a lot. She seemed to have gotten pretty distracted with all the maps and ideas of figuring stuff out." Which was kind of adorable, really. "She mentioned something called the Republic when I mentioned the Galactic Federation, but they're clearly different things entirely."

She tilted her head, regarding him curiously. "So, what is going on? If you don't mind me asking?"

Kanan gave a little huff, something wry and entirely too tired for somebody who was most of the way through a can of Red Bull.

"Nah, I don't mind," he replied, shrugging and then finishing off the can before continuing. Which would truly end well, sure. "The Republic governed the Galaxy when Hera and I were kids. They're... not really a thing, anymore. At the end of a war between the Republic and a group of separatists, one of the Chancellors of the Republic stepped in and staged a hostile takeover of... everything. No more Republic, no more separatists. Just the Empire, erasing anything from the Galaxy that might potentially endanger the Emperor's control over all of it."

So, basically everyone Kanan had ever known. But he wasn't bitter, really.

"Oof," said Summer eloquently. "That sucks. Ugh! What is it about galactic governments that makes people think they can just charge in and take control? Like, who says they get to own the galaxy? It's a galaxy, no one should own it, especially not megalomaniac Empires and stupid bug Federations. Not to mention there's just no possible way you could control a whole galaxy, do they not even realize how big galaxies can be? There's going to be rebels. There's going to be people who won't stand for it. People like my Grampa Rick."

And, dare she say it? Yeah, she going to go ahead and say it, squaring her shoulders and narrowing her eyes and plopping a clenched fist down on the countertop. "People like me."

And a little part of Summer from about a year ago was just thinking, whoa, okay, dramatic much?

Oh, kid. There was something about that determination that reminded Kanan all too much of the kid he used to be. He managed to just keep smiling through the pang in his chest at the thought.

"Of course there'll be rebels. Even good governments end up with people standing up against them," he pointed out. "The thing about the ones who take control successfully is that they're already bigger than whatever might step up against them. They're so well established, so ingrained in the way things work, they don't think a handful of rebels can accomplish much."

"Which could be a good thing for the rebels," Summer reasoned. "It's when you start to think you're invulnerable that things start to go bad for you. The Federation is scared, though. They have to be, otherwise they wouldn't have done so much to try to get Grampa Rick, right? And now they probably think they've gotten the one person that was a real threat to them. I bet they're all up their in their space station or whatever, patting themselves on the back, complimenting each other over how they finally got Rick Sanchez out of their dumb, stupid feelers."

"They might be," Kanan allowed. "But they didn't take over an entire galaxy by kicking back and congratulating themselves, I'm sure. Is Earth the only populated planet they've taken over?"

Kanan didn't want to be a buzzkill, but he wanted to be dead even less.

"Hold on," Summer held up a finger to shift through her bag again and pulled out a book. She cleared her throat as she read from a page marked with a Post-It note.

"For over 850 glaagnars, the Galactic Federation has helped quintillions of other sentient life forms assimilate into our vision of one united universe. We stand scrung in scrung with thousands of planets; perhaps your will be next!"

She turned the page around to point to the Galactic Federation Mission Statement heading. "Does that sound like the language of a free and open government? "

"Sounds like propaganda," Kanan said simply, frowning at the page where she was pointing, and then back down at the maps. "Quintillions, though. That's one hell of a track record."

This was starting to seem a little less like a jailbreak and a little more like a small revolution.

"At least the Empire had the decency to stop pretending it was doing what was best for anything besides the Empire, before too long."

'Decency.'

"After it killed off most of the people it viewed as a threat."

"Yeah," murmured Summer, "the G.F. seems to still be in 'we'll try to detain and arrest, unless they fight back, then they've given us no choice' mode. I guess that's kind of a good thing, right?"

"It means that you might still have a grandpa alive to save," Kanan replied. "The whole situation is terrible, but if they're taking prisoners instead of performing executions on the spot, then there's hope."

Summer just bobbed her head in a nod for a moment. She had watched them nearly massacre all her grampa's friends at the sham wedding they had barely escaped, but it was still impossible to imagine that they could do the same to Rick. She couldn't fathom it. She didn't want to fathom it.

Then she shook her head the other way. "I have to get him out. I feel like I'm the only person in my universe who understands how important it is, but...you're right. There's still hope. There's always hope. It might be small, infinitesimal, maybe, and I might not know how to use it yet, but I'll get there."

"Even if hope is all you have," Kanan replied, "it's something to hold on to. Hope means that you have that much more than nothing."

And now he was starting to sound like a damn Jedi. Somewhere within the Force, Master Billaba was laughing at him, wasn't she?

"Of course, you also have two well-armed ships, and a pair of pilots who know their way around them. That can't hurt either."

"That's right, I do." It didn't hurt one bit. Summer smiled again, comforted by that. "I'm also working on a list of my grampa's friends who might still be alive to help us out. The real trick with that is going to be contacting them. The Federation jumped on Earth fast after we escaped them, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were keeping similar tabs on other places where he had a present. But it's a start. Can't build a rebellion in just one day, amiright?"

"Empire's been in control for nearly a decade back home, and people are still figuring ours out," Kanan pointed out. "But... we'll get there. It'll happen. It has to."

Because the other alternative was to see a Galaxy under Sith control forever, and that wasn't acceptable.

Damn it, Hera was going to make a revolutionary of him yet.

Oof. Hopefully Summer wouldn't have to wait quite that long, but she'd stick with it for however long it needed to be ~~which was likely just until her new canon finally comes out~~.

"Hey, maybe if this works, my Grampa Rick could help you guys out, too!"

Yeah, Summer, because if there was something your Grampa Rick looooooved to do, it was save other people he didn't know in galaxies he'd never been to against governments he knew nothing about.

Evidently, Grampa Rick was way smarter than Kanan and Hera.

"Let's focus on one thing at a time," Kanan replied, smiling wryly. "Make sure he's alright and holding it together before making plans to run off and liberate another galaxy. Besides, breaking him out is just step one. From the sound of it, your reality has its work cut out for it, too."

With a governing force that was even more firmly rooted than the Empire.

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Luke's, Sunday

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