Characters: Domino Squad, O'Niner

Rating: K

Summary: Written for Asexy April Big Bang Challenge. It's Domino Squad's first day at the Rishi Outpost, and they encounter some mysterious items left behind for them.


Colorful Curiosities

"Attention troopers," recited the pilot's voice as the docking bay doors shut. "We are making our final approach to the Rishi outpost. Squads housed in cabins twelve and thirteen will be offloaded upon arrival."

"That's us!" Echo said, sitting up a little straighter on the edge of his seat.

"Yeah," Hevy said, staring intently out the viewport. "We heard."

"Rishi, eh?" Cut-Up mused, checking his new facial hair in the reflective blank screen of his data pad. He turned his chin this way and that, rubbing at it a little. It was finally starting to fill out and look like more than just a few days of neglect. "Never heard of it."

"You mean you didn't read our briefing?" Echo looked concerned.

"I wouldn't really call it a briefing." Fives glanced at Echo, smiling. "I'm sure our C.O. will tell us more as soon as we arrive."

"'Ey Hevy," laughed Cut-Up, "How'd you like to bet our new boss will peg you as the one with the positive attitude right away?"

Hevy raised an eyebrow, sensing some catch. "And why is that?"

"Because you're so happy to be here your cheeks are just glowing."

Hevy narrowed his eyes and shook his head, but a hand crept self-consciously toward the wide tattoos along his jaw that were still a little red.

"Very funny."

"Good one, Cut-Up," Droidbait laughed. It was nice to see Hevy getting teased for once, instead of him.

"Shoulda gone with something smaller, Hevy," Fives said, grinning. "Like me." He glanced up and to the right, as if he could see the 5 on his own forehead. "Still can't raise my eyebrows without feeling it, though…."

"Ooh, so there's the reason Hevy's bein' so quiet," Cut-Up said in mock epiphany, his rogue accent slipping in again. "It still hurts to talk, doesn't it?"

Hevy shrugged, smirking. "I don't feel a thing."

"It does feel odd," said Droidbait. He knew Hevy was lying. They'd gotten their tattoos on the same day, and while it wasn't exactly painfulanymore, that was a far cry from not feeling anything. His own tattoo was also on his cheeks, smaller than Hevy's markings—a design like a pinwheel on each side of his jaw.

"Don't you think we should be lining up for departure?" Echo stood abruptly, jittery and bright-eyed.

"Yeah. Come on boys," Hevy jumped to his feet to join him. "Can't wait to finally get off this transport. Maybe see some action!"

"Yes, but what kind of action?" Cut-Up chuckled. "That's what I'm wondering. We're still rookies, you know. They'll probably have us running errands or something at first."

Droidbait stood to join Hevy and Echo, and Fives and Cut-Up followed. They stood facing one another, hanging onto the overhead grips as the ship descended through the atmosphere. Fives was smiling a little, seeming quietly thrilled; Echo was too, and Cut-Up pursed his lips in a funny way he'd been doing more often since starting to grow a beard. Hevy… well, Hevy looked ready to move, his knees and elbows slightly bent, head up and one fist loosely clenched.

"Regulation states that we offload our gear before meeting our commanding officer," Echo recited to himself. "Right. So we'll just grab our crates on the way out."

"Yeah," Hevy teased. "Wouldn't want the pilot to fly off with all your gear still inside."

"How embarrassing," said Cut-Up.

"Stop worrying, Echo," Fives said cheerfully. "We've got it all under control."

"I'm not worried." Echo's voice was light. "I know exactly what to do. I read the briefing."

Droidbait smiled at their conversation. He didn't care so much where they were going—the important thing was that they hadn't been split up.

The shuttle settled down onto solid ground. "Troopers, you are clear to disembark."

They grabbed their crates and left cabin twelve, joining the troops of cabin thirteen on the way out. At the bottom of the ramp was a single trooper in an unmarked set of armor. The eerily silent landing platform was attached to a cliff-side base, and all around was nothing but bare rock, a dark pocked landscape of shadows and caverns, and on the dark horizon the edge of the nearest planet was large and bright. As they set their crates down in a neat row, the trooper facing them took off his helmet.

"Listen up, rookies. I'm Sergeant O'Niner, and I'll be responsible for you while you're here."

Droidbait snapped to attention along with everyone else. The hair at the Sergeant's temples looked white in the bright lights from the ship he was squinting toward.

"The volunteers who have been staffing this base will be handing over management to us today," he said. "We'll need to inspect everything and make sure the armory is fully stocked and run tests on all the sensors and communication systems. We can get to know each other while we're working. Once we get inside, we'll split into three teams. You will all be sure to give detailed reports on anything that seems to be in bad repair or out of place. Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!"

Together they marched with their crates to the blast doors at the end of the walkway, where a Sullustan in an unfamiliar uniform was standing at ease.

"Here you go, Sarge," he said, handing over a datapad. "The keys to the castle."

The Sergeant just nodded and input the codes to open the blast door. "We'll take it from here, sir."

"Have fun, boys!" The Sullustan grinned, turned and walked past them.

It was odd, going into the empty base. They pulled their gear up the stairs and onto the central ops deck, stark and dark grey apart from the glowing primary colors and occasional green of the monitors. O'Niner turned to face them. Droidbait could see his hair was merely peppered with light grey now that they were in diffuse lighting. O'Niner raised his pale eyebrows and with a few quick hand motions the line split. Droidbait stepped aside with Echo and two troopers he didn't know.

"Alright… I want you all to stow your crates and download the specs of the base if you need help finding anything. You," O'Niner pointed at the first group where Fives and Cut-Up were standing, "get on the computers and do a full systems check. You four check the armory and the barracks." He pointed at Droidbait's group, then Hevy's. "And you three, you're with me. We'll go over the long range communication system and talk protocol."

"Yes, sir!" Hevy said a bit loudly, saluting with the rest of them.

"Alright, let's get to it. Barracks are down that way. We'll all meet back here when you're finished, or in one hour, whichever comes first. Move out!"

Droidbait fell in line and followed the others out into the hall. As soon as the door closed, someone spoke up.

"Did you see his hair?"

"Heh. What about his eyebrows?" Cut-Up asked. "How old do you think he is?"

"Can't be more than a year or two older than us. Maybe three. Were they making us that long ago?"

"Maybe we'll look like that in a year," the clone right next to Droidbait said.

"I don't think so… maybe he's just a mutant," Droidbait said uneasily. "Or he made his hair grey on purpose."

"Guys," Echo interrupted. "Should we really be talking like that about our Sergeant? Following orders is more important than—"

"What?" Hevy asked innocently. "If he did turn it that color on purpose, that means he won't mind if we talk about it. Nothing wrong with being different, anyway." His voice softened a little, and Droidbait wondered if he was thinking of Ninety-Nine.

Cut-Up grinned. "Besides, he can't hear us."

"Mutations happen." Droidbait shrugged. "If he is a mutant, it's obviously just a superficial mutation, otherwise he wouldn't be here. Nothing to be awkward about."

"Well if you ask me, it looks great," said one of the clones in Droidbait's group. A few of the others shook their heads. "What? It's a nice color."

They entered the barracks.

"Home sweet home!" Fives said, immediately claiming a bunk. Echo dragged his crate over to join him. "See you in an hour, brothers!" Fives waved and marched out with his group. Droidbait went to claim the bunk next to where Echo stood, and one of the new guys in his group got there at the same time.

"You mind?" the trooper asked.

"Go ahead," Droidbait said, taking off his helmet. "My number's Zero-Zero-Twenty-Ten by the way. That's Echo." He gestured casually over his shoulder to where Echo was watching them.

"CT Three-Thirty-Zero-Two," said Droidbait's new bunkmate. He had an unmarked face and standard haircut.

"This is your first assignment too, right?"

"Yeah," said 33002, looking away with a faint grin. "Just barely graduated."

Something about the way he said barely made Droidbait wonder.

"So… you got a nickname?"

"Hey, Nub," called one of the others, and 33002's head whipped around. "Come take a look at this! And bring your friends! We're all supposed to be inspecting the barracks, not hanging around."

"That's CT-Three-Two-Seven," Nub muttered as he motioned Echo and Droidbait to follow him over to where 327 was lifting an irregular sheaf of flimsi off one of the bunks. "He doesn't have a nickname either."

"What do you think?" 327 said, holding up the topmost sheet of flimsi, which had a note scribbled on it. "It was just lying there when we walked in."

Echo took it with a puzzled look, and read it aloud in an uncertain voice. "To the new boys on the block… here's a little something to keep you entertained. Just passing it on, from one brotherhood to another. It's our gift to the army for taking the base off our hands. Take good care of our girls. They may not be flesh and blood, but it's better than nothing, right?" He looked up from the note at the three other troopers standing there and then blinked at the other sheets in 327's hand.

"Ah—!" 327 said as one of the larger pieces began to slide free of the stack.

"I got it!" Droidbait carefully caught it by the corners and tugged it free.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Echo asked, waving the note. "Our orders were to report anything out of the ordinary. We should tell Sarge about this before we do anything else."

"I just wanna see what it is," Droidbait said, holding it out at arm's length.

"Yeah, I doubt there's a bomb hiding on these pages," 327 chuckled.

"But it's not ours," said Echo crisply.

"I'm not going to damage it," Droidbait said, staring. "Look, I'm being careful."

"That a… twi'lek?" Nub shifted to see the poster better, and tilted his head. "What's with the angle? Supposed to be funny, I guess."

"Maybe." The reddish twi'lek, wearing a backless black dress, was propping herself up on a large chain gun, glancing over her shoulder, with the focus of the picture on her backside. "Is that a Z-6? She's leaning on the end of the barrels."

"That's not safe," 327 snorted. "Good way to get yourself shot to pieces if the safety's off."

"Yeah, yeah, we all went through the same training, Three-Two-Seven," Nub said. "We know."

"I was just making an observation."

"Alright," Echo broke in."These obviously belong to the guys who lived here before. We should turn them in to Sergeant O'Niner. Maybe he can contact the owner and give them back."

"Didn't you read the note, Echo?" Droidbait said, exchanging pictures with 327. "They left them behind for us on purpose."

"Maybe, but the reg manual says—" Droidbait sighed but Echo continued undaunted "—that we're forbidden from accepting any gifts from civilians except for necessary supplies, or, in some rare exceptions, with approval of an army general. We have to turn these in."

Droidbait glanced around, but nobody else seemed to be listening to Echo. The new picture in Droidbait's hands was much smaller than the first one, about standard page size, and was of a grinning red-haired human woman standing on one foot in an odd posture, holding one rifle in each hand.

"Got it upside down, brother," Nub said, carefully taking it and turning it around so the woman's head was at the bottom. "See, her hair's spread out like that 'cause it's on the ground. Legs are s'posed to be propped up above her against a wall I think."

"But that doesn't make any sense," Droidbait said, frowning down at the strange picture. "How's she supposed to shoot anything like that?"

"Well," Nub laughed. "Doesn't really look like she's trying to shoot anything."

"Then… what's the point of drawing her holding a gun?"

"I dunno; do I look like an artist?" Nub shrugged. He almost sounded wistful. He grabbed another small picture off the stack, this one of a sitting green twi'lek lit with a sunny yellow backdrop, dressed in a very skin-tight orange suit. "This one's kinda nice. Like the colors, anyway."

"Guys, this is our very first real assignment," Echo said, "and our chance to make a good first impression with our C.O. I'm going to go take stock of the armory like we were ordered to. Is anybody coming with me? Droidbait?"

"Yeah." Droidbait quickly handed a picture a nearly-naked rodian back to 327. "Let's go."

"I'm coming. Echo, right?" 327 said as he put the pictures back down on the bunk. "I'll tell Sarge about the pictures when we report back. Don't worry about it."

Echo nodded and smiled a little. "We should make a more thorough sweep of the barracks."

"Yeah," 327 agreed. "Make sure there's nothing else out of the ordinary."

"Droidbait and I'll take this side," Nub volunteered, gesturing toward the far end of the barracks. "We can meet in the middle."

They split up and headed in opposite directions. Droidbait shook down the bunks to check for any instability and began looking carefully around, under, and behind each bed for any additional items. Nub checked the computer in the corner, taking the opportunity to download the base's schematics onto his pad. Then he set about opening the ventilation ducts.

"So… your friends call you Droidbait?" he asked casually as he pulled a grate free of the wall.

"My batchers," Droidbait sighed, pulling a dusty stylus out from behind one of the bunks. "I haven't thought of anything that suits me better yet."

"Well," Nub laughed softly under his breath—it echoed slightly as he had his head partially inside the shaft. "I don't exactly have the most flattering nickname eith—either…." Nub sneezed. "Eugh. Those guys obviously never sent a cleaning droid in here."

"Nub's not so bad," Droidbait said, tucking the runaway stylus into his belt. "It almost sounds like a real name. Does it mean anything?"

"Yeah…." Nub's voice went dry. "Non-Useful Body."

Droidbait grimaced. "Oh." He glanced over to the opposite side of the barracks and lowered his voice. "Was that Three-Two-Seven's idea?"

"Don't remember actually," Nub said, leaning inside the shaft up to his hips. He sounded like he was reaching for something "One of our instructors introduced the term during a lesson, I think. Just sort of caught on." He extracted himself and brushed the dust from his hair. "What you think this is?" He held up something fist-sized, translucent and grey. When Droidbait took it from Nub, it cracked in several places just from the pressure of his fingers.

"Looks like… something just shed its skin." Droidbait made a face, simultaneously repulsed and fascinated. The facilities on Kamino were always so completely clean and sterile that he had never seen any insects in person before, or any animals except during the occasional training session in the ocean.

"Yeah. I wonder if there's some sort of infestation. Better tell Sarge. I didn't see anything else in there… I'll check the other vents, though."

Droidbait went and dropped the husk on his crate before he went back to inspecting the room, including the attached refreshers.

The troopers worked in relative silence. After fifteen minutes, the four of them had a small collection of abandoned odds and ends and were ready to move on to the armory.

"Just a lot of dust, that's all," Echo said brightly as they walked. "It shouldn't take us too long to get this place into shape."

The door opened to what was supposed to be the armory, but all Droidbait saw was a room crowded with small barrels and a single rack of DC-15 rifles.

"This is the armory?" 327 said. "Looks more like a closet."

"Well, according to the schematics I downloaded," Echo said eagerly, looking at his datapad. "This base isn't designed to accommodate an army, just a few small squads at most." He moved to look at the barrels. "They're empty. It looks like they were storing some of the LT in here. Or maybe just the empty tanks when they were finished. There's got to be a better place for them. I'll ask the Sergeant when we get back to ops!"

"You'd think people would take a little pride in keeping an important base like this in order," 327 scoffed. "It's a good thing they handed it over to some real soldiers."

"Let's check the weapons," Droidbait suggested.

All the rifles were fully charged and seemed like new. Nub found a cache of grenades hidden behind the empty barrels, along with two rocket launchers.

"I've got it all counted," Echo said, tapping it into his pad. "Fourteen DC-15s, eleven sets of—"

"Why don't you save it for the Sarge, Echo?" Droidbait broke in.

"Ah, right," said Echo. "It's been almost seventy minutes since we left the op center. We'd better get back there."

When they returned to ops, Fives and Cut-Up stood at one of the stations around the edge of the room, listening intently as O'Niner ran Hevy's team through the long range communications.

"Alright, send a test message to the fleet."

"Now, sir?" Hevy asked, and Droidbait could hear the suppressed thrill in his voice.

O'Niner nodded. "Go ahead, kid. Key in the frequency for General Kenobi's ship. But put it on low priority. If someone's free, they'll answer and we won't have to interrupt the Generals."

"Yes, sir." Hevy pushed a series of buttons. "Cut-Up, run it through the standard encryption sequence."

"Got it!"

In a few minutes, a hologram appeared of a clone with a scar around his left eye. "Rishi outpost, this is Commander Cody. All quiet out there?"

Hevy looked to Sergeant O'Niner to speak, but the Sarge just nodded at him to go ahead and Hevy stiffened, throwing his voice low and gruff as he always did when he was nervous. "Ah, yes sir, everything's fine here. Just testing the long range communications, sir." Droidbait saw Cody smile a little and Hevy awkwardly added, "How are things with the fleet, Commander?"

"We're still hunting General Grievous. That monster's evaded our sensors so far, but we'll get him." The Commander smirked and nodded once. "Stay vigilant. He could be anywhere, and our intelligence suggests he usually lies low like this just before a large-scale attack."

"Yes sir!" Hevy said. "The fleet can depend on us."

"Glad to hear it. I'd better get back to the command post. Good luck with the new batch, O'Niner."

"Thank you, sir," said Sergeant O'Niner solemnly. "Good luck to you as well."

When the hologram cut out, Droidbait wasn't the only one suppressing a grin of excitement.

"That was Commander Cody," O'Niner said. "He oversees the entire Third Systems Army, and works directly with Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi on the front lines… probably one of the most respected leaders in the entire war effort. It's lucky he wasn't too busy to receive our message."

Everyone was silent, until Echo piped up, "thank you for letting us speak with him, Sergeant. It's an honor."

O'Niner took a step back away from Hevy, turning his head to look at every one of them. "I want you all to remember: it may be quiet out here, but we are still part of the same army as soldiers like him. The Republic is depending on us to stay alert to any threat on our borders."

"Yes, sir!"

"Now… you four, report."

"We inventoried the armory, sir." Echo stepped forward and handed over his datapad. "There were some empty LT barrels in there. We'll move them as soon as we know where you'd like them to go."

"Not too bad," the Sergeant nodded, reading. "Are the barracks in shape?"

"Yes, sir," 327 said. "We found a few items they seem to have left behind. Should we attempt to return them to their owners, sir?"

O'Niner shook his head. "Unless it's something we can use, or something obviously personal, junk it. Those men were warned to clear the barracks of anything they wanted to keep."

327 looked at Echo, then at Droidbait. "Yes, sir."

"Anything else?"

Nub spoke up. "Droidbait and I found some kind of large… insect skin, I think. In the vents."

"And a lot of dust," Echo added.

"Perhaps you could identify it, sir?" asked Droidbait.

"You can ID it yourselves," O'Niner said. "Between your datapads and the computers here, you should be able to dig up any information on dangerous native creatures that you need. There isn't much here on this moon." The corner of his mouth twitched, the closest thing to a smile Droidbait had seen him give. "And only the giant eels are really dangerous."

"Giant eels, sir?" Echo asked, his voice a little high.

Everyone was quiet. Droidbait tried to guess if the Sarge was serious or was pulling a prank. Cut-Up was stifling a grin, but that was nothing new.

"You bet, son. Giant eels," O'Niner said gravely. "Big enough to swallow you whole. So don't get any ideas about fooling around outside the base. Now who's going to help me check up on the cleaning droids?"

"I will, sir!" 327 practically leapt forward. "I'm pretty good with machinery."

"Good. The rest of you can familiarize yourselves with the computer systems. Hevy, Four-Seventy, and Sprout will fill you in."

"Question, sir," Fives said.

"Go ahead, Fives."

"There aren't enough duties for all of us to stay busy in ops once we're briefed on the systems. What are our duties once we're finished with that?"

"As long as the necessary posts are manned at all times, the rest of you can relax or find something else to do. Check out the mess hall… explore the base, catch up on the regs, hit the gym, listen to music. Move those empty LT barrels. Whatever keeps you out of trouble. Just don't distract the troopers who are keeping watch. We'll work out formal shifts as soon as you're all familiar with your duties. Clue, you're with me and Three-Two-Seven."

O'Niner left the room with 327 and Clue. Everyone else turned to stare at each other.

"Do you think he was serious?" Echo asked. "Or… is this some kind of test?"

"He's serious. He already showed us how to pull up the approved music station," Hevy said.

"That he did!" Cut-Up agreed. "Check it out, brothers!"

He pulled up a hologram of a dancing droid that Droidbait could only guess was supposed to look like a woman. A tinny melody with deep bass came over the speakers. It was like nothing he'd ever heard before. He couldn't tell if he liked it or not.

"Hey, not bad." Fives was grinning and immediately began nodding slightly to the beat.

"Are you sure we're allowed to listen while on duty?" Echo asked.

Hevy shut it off. "I dunno. Sarge didn't say, exactly."

"What do you guys make of him, anyway?" asked another trooper. "I can't tell if he's just more lax that I expected or… maybe now that we've graduated, we do get more privileges."

"I dunno, Sprout. Maybe he's trusting us to take initiative," Fives said. "Show we're capable and dedicated even when we're given a little more freedom. Show that we can be part of a team."

"That's what I think," Echo added. "We have to prove we're responsible. Real soldiers, not just rookies."

"Yeah," sighed Hevy. "Let's hope that's all it is, and it's not because he knows nothing will ever happen on this rock. Come on guys, I'll show you how to run this thing."

….

By the time Droidbait walked back into the barracks that night, his head was so full of new music, orders, and information on the quadrant and the base that he'd completely forgotten about the pictures on 327's bunk. He guessed the same was true for Echo, because the minute he and Droidbait walked in and saw Fives, Hevy and Cut-Up passing them around, Echo made a loud noise of dismay.

"Where's CT Three-Two-Seven? He said he was going to junk those!"

327 emerged from behind the crowd. "We junked all the stuff we couldn't use. We can use these, so I didn't junk them."

"And how exactly are these useful?" Echo asked. "What are we supposed to do with them? I don't think Sarge would approve."

"Well," Droidbait reluctantly spoke up. "Actually, he might not care. He doesn't seem to be very strict so far."

"Seems a shame to throw them out," Cut-Up laughed, looking at the one with the redhead woman. "They're so funny."

"Maybe he'll understand that we didn't want to offend the guys who left them for us," Fives said, "and he can ask them if they want them back."

"Personally, I don't see what the problem is," Hevy said, making a mildly disgusted face at the rodian one. "They wouldn't have left them here if they were valuable, and it's not that interesting to look at anyway. I don't even like it. Something about it just rubs me the wrong way. And I don't know what you're laughing about, Cut-Up. It's probably just some sort of prank."

"Well, it's sort of interesting," 327 said grudgingly. "Even though it's… weird. I didn't know Felucians were shaped like that. Or that they dressed like that."

"They're not really like that," Cut-Up laughed. "There's no way. That's why it's funny!"

"But Nub's the one who really doesn't want them thrown out." 327 teased.

"What? I didn't say that." Nub had just walked into the barracks.

"Yes you did. When we were discussing it in the mess, remember? You said you wondered how long it took to learn to make a picture like this." 327 flicked a finger against the big twi'lek poster.

"Oh… right." Nub grimaced. "I just like the colors. And the lines."

"All a picture is, is colors and lines, Nub," Sprout said.

"No, I mean… not what the lines make. Just… see how it curves right there?" He pointed at the messy curls of the redhead's hair. "It gets thicker and thinner in different places. It's… it's like calligraphy."

"Calligraphy?" Fives looked curious.

"I-it's a style of writing," Nub said awkwardly, "some people use. I asked about it… Master Chief gave me some information. Thought it would be useful to be able to read all different kinds of writing. Never know where you might end up stationed, right?"

"Hopefully nowhere Aurebesh or High Galactic isn't being used," Droidbait said, grinning.

"No… look at the artist's signature. That's sort of like calligraphy. Not a different writing system, it's just a special way of writing Aurebesh or High Galactic," Nub clarified, scratching his head self-consciously.

327 shook his head. "Oh yeah. It's special, alright. Why don't you ever spend your time learning something useful?" he sighed. "Maybe you're right, Hevy. We should get rid of these. Nub doesn't need any more distractions from being a soldier."

"Let's just ask the Sergeant what to do." Echo said. "I volunteer."

"Good idea. Nub and I will go with you." Droidbait nudged Nub and dragged him forward before he could protest. "Come on, hand over the flimsi."

"You know, I think I'm starting to see the humor," Fives said, making faces at the one he was holding before handing it over to Echo. "Maybe. Nope, still more confused than amused."

"The best jokes don't make any sense," Cut-Up insisted sagely.

When they'd gathered up all of the posters, they gave them to Echo and followed him out of the room.

Droidbait fell in step close beside Nub. "So… does Three-Two-Seven have a problem with you?"

"No," Nub said quietly. "Just trying to keep me alive. And he's right… it would be more useful if I were interested in weapons or strategy or…." He sighed. "Anything useful."

They walked in silence. Droidbait didn't know what to say. Just outside the Sergeant's quarters, Echo stopped and looked at Nub. "Paying attention to detail is a useful skill on the battlefield. At least, that's what I think."

He pushed the door's comm button before either of them could answer.

"Requesting permission to enter, Sergeant."

"Come."

The door opened and Echo led them inside. O'Niner put down whatever he had been reading and faced them with his hands behind his back.

"Sir," Echo said briskly. "While we were inspecting the barracks earlier today, we found these with this note attached saying they were gifts for us. I reminded the others that we are prohibited from accepting gifts from civilians without proper approval, but most of us can't agree on whether we should try to return them, or throw them out. Is there any way we could contact the men who left them here?"

O'Niner took the pile from Echo and rifled through it after scanning the note, one eyebrow slowly rising a little higher with each picture he saw. "And none of you want to keep them?"

"No, sir," Echo said, after a shocked, two-second silence. Nub opened his mouth and shut it again.

"We know it's against regulation, sir," Droidbait jumped in. "And most of us don't really see the point. But a few of us think they're funny."

"Is that right?" O'Niner set the pile on the desk.

"Mostly Cut-Up," said Droidbait. "He has a weird sense of humor. But Nub and I like the colors on some of them, sir."

O'Niner looked hard at Droidbait and Nub for a long moment. His eyes were always slightly narrowed, and Droidbait wondered why that was. It made him uneasy.

"We'll get rid of them as soon as you give the order, sir," said Nub. "But you did list an exception in your orders for anything obviously personal. We weren't sure if this qualified."

"Do you find this…artwork distracting?" O'Niner gestured toward it with one hand as he moved around behind the projector and pushed a few buttons.

"No, sir," Nub said nervously.

"No, sir," Droidbait and Echo said.

"Hmm. Would your fellow troopers agree with you on that?"

Nub stood stiffly at attention. "They might not, sir. I did express an interest in the color and the quality of the lines."

"You're not really going to let us keep them, are you sir?" asked Echo. "Wouldn't that be against regulation?"

"Hmm." O'Niner stepped back from the buttons he'd been pressing. A hologram of the uniformed Sullustan they'd passed on the way in appeared on the projector.

"Is there a problem, Sergeant?" said hologram.

"Captain Ertell," said O'Niner. "My men claim your crew left them a few posters as gifts. I believe some people call these pin-ups. Was it your intention to get my men to break regulation?"

"I wasn't aware there was a regulation against decorating the base, Sarge," Ertell laughed. "A little beauty is every man's right. We just had some extras and thought at the last minute that it might be nice to pass them on. The walls get awful boring otherwise."

"And did it ever cross your mind that my men might not actually care for your gifts?" O'Niner's voice took on an almost weary tone. He rubbed his left temple slightly.

Droidbait glanced at Nub and knew they were both thinking that they did care—having something colorful to look at was starting to look more and more appealing the more Droidbait thought about it. Some of them made him wonder about faraway planets where the light was golden or green rather than the washed out blue-grey or sterile white he'd seen his entire life.

"Uhh," Ertell said. "Well, maybe some soldiers aren't into the ladies, but you can't be saying that all of you—"

"I am saying that we of the Grand Army of the Republic generally lack your appreciation for this topic of… entertainment," O'Niner said, still in that dull tone that Droidbait suddenly realized was exasperation. "Your thoughtfulness is appreciated, but for your information and future reference, troopers are not permitted to receive gifts except from an army general. And if you were approved to give something, useful supplies or information would be more welcome. This isn't the first time I've seen this happen. Civilians often get the wrong idea and think they're doing us a favor."

"Sorry, sir. Didn't mean to cause any trouble, you know," Ertell shrugged. His voice sounded genial but he was looking at the Sergeant as if O'Niner had said something ridiculous "You can throw them out if you want, and no need to ship them back to us. They're not that valuable anyway. Any other problems with the base?"

"Nothing we can't clean up ourselves," O'Niner said. "O'Niner out."

Ertell looked slightly upset when the hologram of his face disappeared. O'Niner picked up the pile of pin-ups and marched past Nub, Droidbait, and Echo.

"Come on, men."

They fell in line behind O'Niner, all too unnerved to say anything. Droidbait had never seen a clone officer talk like that to a citizen of the Republic. He wasn't sure whether O'Niner's behavior qualified as disrespect or if Ertell had simply overreacted.

"Question, sir," Droidbait finally got up the nerve to say.

"Remind me of your name."

"It's Droidbait, sir."

"What's your question, Droidbait?"

"Sir. I'm just not sure I understand the situation. Was there something malicious about them leaving these posters for us?"

O'Niner shook his head slowly, but stopped to open the barracks door and didn't speak again until they were all inside. Fives, Cut-Up and the rest stood up and came to attention.

"At ease. I doubt the men who left these here meant any harm by it," O'Niner said to them all, dropping the pile neatly on the nearest bunk. "And even if they did… most civilians can never really wrap their heads around what it means to be one of us. They think because we walk and talk like other humans, we have the same instincts. We don't. If any of you ever end up working with other humans, or most other species in general, be aware they will make assumptions about you based on their own reproductive instinct."

Droidbait glanced down at the pile of posters on the bunk. He couldn't quite figure out why a man's reproductive instinct should have anything to do with not wanting to draw the proper posture for holding a gun.

"I have a question, Sergeant," Cut-Up said.

"Go ahead," O'Niner said.

"When a human and a Felucian have a baby, what does it look like?"

Someone made a noise like he'd just managed to keep himself from choking on air. Droidbait couldn't figure out if it was Sprout or 327.

"Humans and Felucians aren't biologically compatible," O'Niner said stoically. "But as you can see, that doesn't matter to some people. Now the real question is, what do we do with these? The men who left these for you don't want them back. There's nothing in regulation to say that any decoration that comes with a base must be immediately destroyed. You can put up a couple small ones in central ops, but the rest will be confined to this room or the trash compactor. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

"It's true there's not much to look at out here in terms of color. About as much as on Kamino. But if for any reason I think these pictures are decreasing our efficiency as a unit, they come down."

"Yes, sir!"

"Understood, sir!"

"Any questions?" O'Niner asked.

"Sir," Echo said immediately. "There may be a loophole in the regulations but wouldn't it be safer to dispose of them all in the first place?"

"Safer?" O'Niner gave Echo a funny look. "Let me tell you something, boys. I've been all over this galaxy and had more than my share of close calls. I've seen things that would make anyone's hair go grey. And I think I know what regulations are important. Trying to stick by every rule equally without remembering what they're for will get you nothing but a headache at best." He grimaced, and Droidbait wondered if a headache was behind his constant squinting. "At worst it'll get you killed. The most important rule is to stay alert, focus on your job, and watch out for yourself and the rest of your team. That's the only thing that will keep you alive, whether you're right here tracking enemy ships or dodging clankers on the front lines. The way I figure it, that's all the motivation any trooper needs to focus on their duties. But don't think I won't be watching for any weak links on the team. Can I count on you to put your duties first?"

"Yes, sir!" everyone immediately said, and Droidbait heard the fervent tone in Echo's voice. But when he glanced at his batcher, Echo's brow was furrowed a little in confusion.

"Glad to hear it," O'Niner said. Then the Sergeant turned abruptly and left.

For a moment, everyone was silent, and Droidbait felt a little off-balance.

"You know," he said half to himself. "I still can't tell if he likes us or not."

"Well done, Cut-Up," Hevy said sarcastically, clapping his hands. "You're lucky Sarge didn't discipline you for that comment."

Cut-Up just laughed. "Aww, you think he got the joke and just didn't like it?"

"Nah," said 327. "He probably just decided it wasn't actually funny."

"Are we really putting these up on the walls?" Fives interrupted. "I vote no on the Felucian and the Rodian."

"And that one twi'lek with the headtails all tied in a bow gives me the creeps," Sprout agreed. "Let's throw that one out."

"But that one's my favorite," Cut-Up joked, then shook his head, grin skewing even further. "Looking at these pictures couldn't possibly make someone want to mate with a Felucian, right? I mean, they're like little turtle people."

"Eh, it's like Sarge says," Droidbait sighed. "Some things we'll just never understand, and civvies won't understand why we don't understand, and…."

"He didn't say that," Echo said. "He said—"

A smattering of "we know!" and "we heard!" stopped Echo from repeating O'Niner's speech word for word. Soon everyone was voting on which posters to keep and which to throw away. Droidbait voted to keep the sunny green twi'lek and even the upside-down redhaired human—mostly because, as Nub put it, "she looks so cheerful."

When the deliberating dragged on for more than a few minutes, Droidbait drifted over to his crate and began taking his armor off. The fist-sized insect skin was still sitting where he'd dropped it earlier that day. He picked it up in one hand with a kind of slow, reverent pleasure. Now he had a chance to look it up in the database and find out what creature it came from.

Dropping the two armplates he'd removed onto his bed, Droidbait happily carried the nearly weightless thing over to the barracks computer and started his search.

"Hey." Nub came over, holding the two posters they'd voted on in one hand. "You gonna try and keep that?" He motioned toward the shell in Droidbait's hand.

"Nah," said Droidbait. "Too fragile, even if Sarge might say it's okay. I just wanna know what it came from."

"You like bugs?" Nub guessed.

"I dunno." Droidbait shrugged one shoulder as he scanned through the sparse file on the moon's native life. "I'm just curious. There's so many things in the galaxy I've never seen for myself. I don't know how long I'll be here… might as well make the most of it and learn as much as I can, right?"

"Yeah," Nub said thoughtfully. Out of the corner of his eye Droidbait saw him lift the pictures in his hand to eye level again. "You think we're really that different from everyone else, like Sergeant O'Niner says? Think other people really look at this stuff and have some kinda intense physical… emotional response?"

"That's what I hear. Ah!" Droidbait cringed as he accidentally crunched off a flake of the exoskeleton in his hand—the computer had finally produced a result that seemed to match. "Look, it's probably one of these… Lan Barell Xiph. Some kind of scorpion… crab thing…."

"Guess being able to ID foreign creatures might be useful on the battlefield. At least you'd know if something's dangerous or not."

"Yeah," Droidbait said guiltily. "Yeah, maybe it could be useful someday." He shut off the computer. "Guess I'll go throw this out."

"Wait. Trade?"

Nub offered the posters and held his free hand palm-up. Droidbait took the posters and handed over the skin. He watched as Nub smiled slowly and looked over at the group still debating over the posters. Hevy, Fives and Echo were standing a little off to the side, Fives still putting in comments here and there.

"No, I said the blue one can stay, the purple one's gotta go. You're the only one who likes that one, Cut-Up."

"Watch this," Nub whispered, then crept up behind where 327 was sitting on a crate and cried "Incoming!" as he raised his arm.

The creature's shell dropped on top of the poster 327 was holding—confused yells and flailing hands ensued from the others while 327 scrambled backward, knocked into Fives, then lunged back over the crate and stomped hard and repeatedly until everyone had backed up at least two steps.

"I got it! Don't worry, I got it," 327 panted triumphantly. "It's dead." He lifted his foot.

"Pulverized," Sprout said, sounding impressed, even though he'd seen Nub approach. Most of them had.

"Somebody give this trooper a medal for saving our lives," Cut-Up said.

"Yeah, Three-Two-Seven," Hevy added in an extremely impressed tone. "I think that was one of the really poisonous ones,"

"Well… it's not dangerous anymore," 327 said, nodding resolutely toward the powdered fragments on the floor.

Nub grinned and Droidbait had to stifle a laugh.

"Actually," Echo said. "It was never even alive."

"What?" 327 looked confused.

"Didn't you notice earlier when Nub and Droidbait found that shell?"

"Oh come on. Echo, you spoiled it!" Hevy groaned.

"Echo!"

"What?" Now Echo looked even more put out than 327.

Fives laughed, clapping Echo on the shoulder. "Ahh, it was funny anyway."

"Yeah, truth has to come out sooner or later," Nub admitted.

327 looked like he might be angry for a moment but then he took a deep breath and rolled it out of his shoulders. He even smiled as he pointed sharply at Nub. "I'll get you back."

Droidbait edged over to stand beside his batchers, still laughing a little. "I think I'm gonna like it here."

He looked down at the lines of curly hair on the page Nub had handed him and tried to imagine them arranged into letters like the illegible signature below. He had a feeling he didn't yet see exactly what Nub saw in it. But he wanted to. Maybe his curiosity wasn't all bad even if it hadn't won any battles. And maybe he didn't have to look to exotic planets to learn something new and exciting… and this base and these brothers could teach him more than enough for now, until the next chapter of his life.