The squad washed up and tried to unwind from their near-nonstop battles and duty. Unlike before, it was awkward and silent. Meku would look at Luay's empty bed and be filled with many different emotions; sadness, guilt, rage, bloodlust, and resolve, to name a few.
She couldn't help the numb feeling she got when she looked at her squadmates. She knew it was wrong and now, of all times, they needed to be close. But a warning nagged in the back of her mind, "Trust no one."
"I can't think like that. These are my brothers. Luay was the bad guy, not them." Still, her heart filled with suspicion. She imagined them scheming against the Republic, the Hearth, and her. Her stomach felt strange, she wasn't hungry and felt somewhat sick. Her limbs moved numbly, like a puppeteer was moving her body. Her head was spinning, memories disjointed and fragmented. She thought a good night's sleep might fix it, but she knew it was not likely to come. The 16th and its reinforcement was hurtling towards the Mandalorians' location.
Jimny had a sixth sense about what was on his men's minds. He tried to make some small talk to distract.
"Going to fix Vanci's shuttle?"
"Yessir," her reply was cold and from autopilot.
"What in the san hill did'ja do this time? Can't leave you alone for two seconds before you break the whole world." He gave a teasing smile. Meku gave a brief, weak half-smile at him and continued organizing her things.
"Should see the Basilisk, Sarge," Oka cut in. "Way worse shape."
"She broke a Basilisk with a shuttle?!"
"Well," she didn't want to take credit. "Vanci did, not me."
"Pff, I thought I taught you better. I can crush a Basilisk with two fingers, and I don't have to damage Navy property to do it." He playfully jabbed Meku's ribs with his elbow. "That's amateur hour, Master Jedi."
A smile just barely escaped from Meku's lips as she rolled her eyes. Sarge had his own special charm. "Riiiiight, and your other hand is carrying the grateful, leggy babe you're rescuing, right?"
"Whoa whoa whoa, relax child, that is not appropriate," Brax cut in.
"I'm not a child, I'm nineteen!"
"That's a child!"
"She's a maaaaaan, Brax. 'Member? She drank lighter fluid and killed bucketheads and everything."
"She's a destructotron," Oka replied, "an unstoppable badass.
Brax stiffened and shuddered at hearing that. Images of Hoth filled his mind.
"Badass or no badass, Vanci's gonna be ticked," Jimny noted.
"Hey hey! She chose to ram the Basilisk."
"Word of advice, kiddo, not gonna care. Pilots are a funny breed," Oka said. Meku cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Love their ships more than their kids, more than their wife, more than themselves, even."
"And that's sayin' a lot. Pilots love themselves so much, I mean, it's crazy. Their heads're bigger than Mastocoids, I tell ya," Jimny added.
"Bigger than who what now?"
"Bigger than Sando Aqua Monsters."
"Is... is that a real thing? Are you messing with me?"
"Oh for Forcesakes, they got big heads, okay? Pilots have big heads, jeez." Meku's heart warmed a bit as she chuckled at her Sargeant's frustration. "All that education and you don't even know what a Sando Aqua Monster is. What do they even teach you on Coruscant?"
"Not cooking, that's for sure," Brax teased.
"Well, Sak could cook..."
"Who the hell is Sack? That some kinda lewd joke?" Jimny's question made Meku realize she hardly ever talked about the Temple with them. Despite coming out of her shell a lot, she still almost never talked about her prior life. She tried not to even think about it too much. She knew she was doing the right thing, but it was difficult not to miss it a little. She especially felt guilty about Master Kunas, she left without even telling him goodbye. Before she could get too deep into thought, Oka spoke.
"Guys, guys, guys, we're getting distracted here." Oka knew Sargeant Jimny could easily segue from a topic with the slightest push.
"Right right, yeah, so pilots. The one thing they love more'n themselves is their ship," Jimny clarified his original point. "Just be prepared for it. Anyway, wanna go for some drinks after?"
"With all due respect, sir, we've been awake almost the entire last four days. So we pass. Uh, I pass at least." Brax spoke.
"I'm pretty tired too, sir," Oka agreed. "Let's go after we kill the buckets."
Sarge nodded solemnly, having been in their shoes many times before. They were at the end of their ropes, so teasing was probably inappropriate. "Alright. Sleep first. Squish insects. Then drinks."
"Works for me," Meku had fire in her voice.
"Well first, gotta fix the shuttle, kiddo," Oka corrected.
"Right! I can do that!"
"Ohhhh, can you? What's wrong with it?"
"It smashed into a Basilisk, that's what," she replied with bravado.
"Deserve a promotion to Captain Obvious for that. So tell me, what part of the ship did the Basilisk break? Scanner core gasket? Misaligned the pitch sensor? Flux capacitator could need to be recalibrated. Impact coulda misaligned the hypermatter injectors. Go ahead, what is it?"
Meku paused for several long moments. "Okay, I know you made some of that up."
"You got much to learn, young apprentice." Oka patted her shoulder with a knowing smile. "Anyways, let's get going. You guys need anything from the scrapyard?"
"A hot date," Jimny replied, not missing a beat.
"I'll see if there's any blind girls in stock. And deaf. And with no noses." Oka pantomimed pinching his nose and gagging at a horrendous smell.
"No insubordination!" Jimny smiled as he barked.
"Yessir."
As they walked through the hangar, Meku sensed a hateful gaze from the fighter bay. She saw Neff just eyeing her. His expression was neutral, but his aura told much more. The old Meku would have looked away and minded her own business. Not now. Meku locked her eyes to his, as if saying "try something."
One of Neff's fellow pilots caught his attention. He put on a fake smile and they started chatting. Satisfied, Meku looked forward at the shuttle. Vanci was squatting by it, talking with a maroon and minty green astromech droid, pointing at something. The shuttle was landed funny, being leaned completely forward. Only the rear landing gear deployed, so the shuttle looked like it had tripped and fallen on its chin. Vanci must have been incredibly skilled; the landing felt no different than before.
"Well there's your problem. You can't fly for jack, can't even park the dang thing!"
"Hey guys!" Vanci got up and smiled at them, nearly tripping over her own feet. "And no, by the way. The front landing gear didn't deploy. I used my immeasurable skill to park it like this." They'd only met Vanci for seconds and she proved Jimny's theory about pilots already.
"Mmmmmmhmmmmm, suuuuuure," Oka rolled his eyes and smiled.
"It was clearly the Jedi's fault for her little Basilisk stunt. She was dumb enough to take it on alone, I had to come in and save her."
"I could've taken it alone! Plus," her voice softened, "I didn't have a choice. The droid kinda yanked me out of the window."
"Excuses," Vanci teased back.
"Still, dumbass fighter pilots weren't doing their jobs," Oka said.
Vanci facepalmed before gesturing in agreement. "I know, right! Damn hotshots. Don't know why they're so bad about that, it's the second fraggin' time."
"It won't happen again," Meku said firmly, her face hostile.
"It better not," Vanci was oblivious. Neither she nor Oka had seen Meku's confrontation with Neff.
"I reviewed her after-action report," Oka explained, "Abel should be giving those idiots an earful."
"It won't be Abel that straightens out that reckless fool," Meku thought.
"He needs to. Imagine if I wasn't there," Vanci exhaled sharply, "you'd be toast."
"Would not!"
"Just admit you needed me." Vanci's expression was cocky.
"Sorry Vance, I'm with the Jed on this one. She's unstoppable." Meku reacted by looking at the floor, trying to stay humble.
"Maybe next time I won't save your mudslogging booty then. But I like you. You definitely have some stones, I'll give you that."
"Yeah," Oka added, "plus she's here to fix the damage from her stupidity."
"Which is good, 'cos my mechanic died in the ambush." Vanci grew a pained expression, chambering a joke to cope. "So it was just math. If I save you, you can work on my ship. Win-win."
"No," Oka's expression became shocked. "Efodi? Efodi is gone?" Vanci just nodded. Oka's expression went from shock to sullen.
"I'm, I'm sorry," Meku said. "We'll avenge them."
"It's fine," Vanci waved her hand, trying to blow off the comment, but she had to scrunch up her face and breathe deeply to prevent tears. Her mind drifted to her mechanic, her copilot, and several other friends lost in the ambush.
"We knew the risks coming in, y'know? Right?"
Meku tried to come up with something to say, to comfort them, but Vanci steered away from the subject.
"Aaaaanyways, let's get working. Had T2-I8 run some diagnostics while I waited for you guys. What's the verdict, T2?"
The maroon-and-mint droid let out a series of beeps and whistles. Binary was one of several languages Meku learned in the Temple.
"Three areas of malfunction," Vanci translated, not knowing Meku could understand. "First is the front landing gear - well, I knew that already. I had to park the damn thing like this, you rust-bucket."
"Wooooo..." T2 replied sadly.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."
More sad Binary followed.
"No, you're not a rust-bucket."
Hopeful beeps.
"Yes, I promise."
Inquisitive Binary.
"Yes yes yes, I promise I promise. You're a good droid, T2. The best droidededed, yes you are!" She spoke to the droid like it was a baby pet.
Happy Binary!
"Yes, yes you are." She gave a little chuckle. "So, let's go on with the diags."
"Meku listened. Although she could understand the droid's language, all the mechanical terms were still like gibberish. The second broken thing was, as Oka predicted, the hypermatter injectors for Engine #2. Also, the navicomputers were having some unknown issues and were not responding to diagnostics. Oka and Vanci nodded, taking it all in.
"That makes sense, there was a definite power loss right after the impact. Although I thought it was for sure the cooling system."
"No, wouldn't have lost power if it was the cooling system," Oka explained. "May have never made it up here, though. Prolly woulda gotten stuck in space, if heat sinks were too damaged. Hypermatter injectors, for sure."
Meku nodded sagely, as if she got it. She didn't got it. She was embarrassed; for the first time since she joined, she felt like she finally got a hang of all this soldiering stuff. Never to be outdone, the Navy always found a way to make her feel like a total idiot who knew exactly nothing about nothing.
"I'm just surprised that's all that happened."
"Shuttle's got great particle shields. Thank goodness they were at 100% when I rammed it. Otherwise it would've been scrap."
"Good point. Sienar's are of the best in the business. So Master Jedi," Oka put his hands on Meku's shoulder. "Go ahead, tear apart engine #2, find out which hypermatter injector is damaged, and why."
Meku's eyes went wide as plates. "Uh... how..."
Oka started to laugh. "Jus' kidding! Nah, we'll start you on the easy job. Let's open up the nose panel and see if anything's jamming the landing gear. Then we go from there."
"Soooo, how..." Meku shrugged in confused surrender.
"Oh, for Force's Sake. The war will be over by the time she fixes it." Vanci's aura was that of a concerned parent with her child.
"Relax, antsy-pantsy," Oka reassured her. "I'm here, and I actually know what I'm doing. We'll get this bird flying again, don't you worry." He turned to Meku. "So, remember about putting together the cooker?"
"Yeah."
"'Kay, same basic principle. Just on a bigger scale."
"So, use a hydrospanner and unbolt the panel, the skin. That'll show all the parts inside."
"First step, yeah. 13 millimeter hydrospanner, looks like. Maybe 14 mil. But yeah, take the skin off, just like with the cooker."
"My shuttle is not a cooker!"
The three of them got some ladders and set to work unbolting the panel, while T2 went inside the shuttle to try to "talk" to the navicomputer. The size of the panel meant all three of them had to work on the scores of bolts holding it in place. Vanci seemed like a bit of a klutz, she nearly overextended herself and fell off the ladder a couple of times.
When they were down to the last few bolts, they had to coordinate lowering the huge panel off the shuttle's body. Already, this was more complicated than the cooker.
"We gotta all be holding on when we remove this last bolt, otherwise it'll fall and squish us."
Meku realized something that she wished she thought of several minutes ago.
"Oka, just unbolt it, it's fine."
"Kiddo, you don't understand, this is a heavy panel."
"I get it Oka, just undo the bolt."
"Meku-"
"-will you just undo the fraggin' bolt? I got this."
Oka sighed and shook his head before getting into a position where he could easily get out from under the panel, should it fall. Only then did he undo the bolt. To his surprise, the panel stayed in place. Then, it gently came off the shuttle and was placed down as Meku gestured. Of course! How could he forget that Meku could levitate stuff?
"That makes our job easier," Vanci admitted. "Can you use the Force to fix the shuttle?"
"I'm not sure about fixing it. I can probably levitate the hell out of it, though."
"Hey hey, levitate the front end, so it doesn't look like a moron parked it," Oka chortled.
"You best watch it, fool. I'll 'accidentally' land on you next time."
"Not if I have my destructotron here flip the ship on you first!" He confidently put his hand on Meku's shoulder.
Before Vanci could reply, T2 shrieked an angry retort from inside.
"He's kidding T2, we're just joking."
Nervous beeps.
"Yes, nobody's gonna flip the ship with you inside it, or squish anyone with the ship."
Further beeps.
"I promise I promise."
Meku chuckled at the childlike nature of the droid before clambering into the exposed nose. Oka leaned in close to Vanci's ear and spoke.
"Sounds like he needs a memory wipe."
"No way. I like T2 this way. It's kinda cute."
"Whatever you say, Vance. Abel's gonna be pissed if you're not keeping up routine wipes on Republic property."
"Abel's got bigger things to worry about than one little droid. He's developing a little personality, so what? I think it's harmless."
"Wipes are important to keep droids in tip top shape. But whatever. Your droid." Oka turned to Meku. "Do you see what's wrong with the landing gear?" He paused for a moment before sighing. He'd have to take this slow for Meku. "Do, did you find the landing gear?"
"Uhhh, there's a lot of stuff in here. It's the thing that looks like a leg, right?"
"I guess?" Meku clarified by pointing, and Oka nodded. "Yeah, that leg thingy, that's it." Vanci just facepalmed, wondering if they'd break her shuttle more.
"So what about it," Meku asked.
"You tell me." He could already see the issue, but wanted her to figure it out for herself.
"I dunno."
"Figure it out. Imagine if you were stranded without me. Basic repair is a skill you need to have."
"Alright..."
"Just play with it. See what moves, what's stuck, and where."
Meku focused. This leg was supposed to extend down. She tried to push it down herself, and she could clearly tell it was blocked. The landing gear was connected to articulating arms that lowered the "leg" into place. One of them looked unnaturally bent. She had no idea what shape it was supposed to be, but it was a start. When she tried to push the leg down herself, her suspicion was confirmed. The bend blocked it from going down all the way.
"I think I got it! This rod doohickey is bent. I think from the impact."
"Good eye. Only took you nine years," Oka replied. "What's the solution?"
"New rod doohickey?"
"No. Republic's not gonna replace an item we can repair. Plus, new parts will take forever to get in."
"Unbend the rod?"
"Much better. Let's get the rod off and find a way to bend it back into shape. Also, a hint for you. Look up the service manual on your datapad. It's got all the directions, diagrams, videos, and stuff. That'll be a big help."
"I've disassembled the cooker like five times. I'll read the diagrams and it should be a piece of cake." She pulled out her datapad and looked up the Ministry-class shuttle's Technical Service Manual, finding the section on 'How to Remove Front Landing Gear."
It was not a piece of cake.
"Why in the blazes is this stupid thing so fragging stupid? Okay the diagram says I have to remove this bolt, but this damn ass dumb cone thingy is in the way! 'Sensor Cone.' WHY do they put the sensor cone RIGHT in front of the thing I have to remove? I gotta take off this cone thingy before I can remove the landing gear. And then I gotta make sure these, what are the stupid things called? 'Hydraulic fluid lines,' gotta make sure they aren't caught up in the landing gear otherwise they may come undone and spill all fluid all everywhere. Why is this so damn hard? Grah! I'd rather face off a ton of bucketheads!"
Meku had taken too long to figure out how to remove the landing gear, so Oka and Vanci left to work on the engine. Vanci put some music through the shuttle's PA. Meku took a break from her frustration to help levitate the engine cover for them.
She went back to the shuttle's nose and, after rereading the diagrams and replaying the how-to video about a million times, she was finally able to remove the sensor cone and undo the landing gear's bolts. She used the Force for these tasks, shortening the work time considerably. T2 saw the mechanism gently lower itself to the floor, and his head span.
"Weeeoooooooaaaaw," he exclaimed.
"No, it's not that great. Everything okay with the Navicomputer?"
Explanatory Binary.
"Processor was dislodged from the who what now?"
T2 repeated himself, but his explanation flew way over Meku's head. She just patted him on the disc-shaped head and said "Well, good job buddy. You are awesome." He replied with happy, satisfied beeps.
Meku and T2 made their way to the engine. Oka and Vanci were standing over it, talking.
"That's a big problem."
"No kidding. The force of the impact musta knocked injectors #4 and #7 out of their mountings. See how the hypermatter is pooling above the annihilation combustor?"
"Yeah, it's even dripping down to the vent valves. That's gonna be bad."
"Not as bad as you think. The valve filter is designed to filter hypermatter from both sides, for this reason specifically. Still, good thing we caught it before it pooled enough to blow your engine or something. That coulda been a catastrophe. Especially if people were on board."
"Lovely."
"Injector mount brackets were designed for hard cornering, explosions, and stuff. Not ramming."
"They should fix that though! You know how much the Mandos like to land their Basilisks on our craft."
"Write to Sienar systems, then. For now, gotta find a way to fix these. Injectors themselves look fine. The mount brakcets, though, looks like no. See," he held his palm up with little shards in it, "totally shattered. See if the QM has any spares, or if we can pull any from damaged shuttles. Otherwise, gotta improvise." He grew a mischievous smile. "The brackets look kinda the same shape as a shot glass."
"Very funny."
"If we can't find spares, we gotta order 'em from Sienar. We'll have to shut down annihilators 4 and 7 till they come in. You'll be down on power by 1/8, but at least you won't have to worry about exploding your shuttle."
As they talked shop, the words just flew completely over Meku's head. It was like they were speaking Huttese. "Whatever you do, keep Oka around. If you break a ship, you're gonna be stuck there forever. Might as well make it your new home."
"Hey guys," she called from below, "it'd be nice if you could speak Basic!"
"C'mon up here, I'll show you how it works," Oka encouraged. Meku Force-leapt, landing on the crook of the shuttle's wing. She took a place next to them and squatted down to get a better look at the engine. "These are the annihilation combustors AKA hypermatter annihilators, this is how the ship makes its power. What's important to know is..."
They worked for hours, listening to Vanci's music. Meku tried to learn as much as she could about the complicated machine. She would need way more practice. They'd borrowed a loader droid, and used its strength to bend the rod back into shape. Meku reinstalled the entire landing gear assembly while Oka and Vanci went to the Quartermaster to try to find spare parts. He'd check over her work when he returned.
Putting it back together was harder than taking it apart, but Meku used the Force to hold parts in place and tighten bolts. That made the job easier than before. At least, so she thought. She rubbed her scalp in confusion when she ended up with some parts left over. "Shit!" She reviewed the diagram again. "Where do these go?"
T2 shouted some encouraging binary from below.
"Right! Thanks, T2."
She had to take the entire thing apart and put it back together because she missed the, what was it called? The 'Extension Pump Connector.' Still, the chore was eased up by T2's company. He was nice to talk to, like a very intelligent youngling. He also helped make sure she put it back together correctly this time.
After she was done, she sat in a meditative position, trying to center herself and take in the million things she learnt just today. Her exhaustion took over and, in only a few seconds, she was fast asleep.
A series of frantic beeps and whistles startled her awake, and Meku snapped her eyes open, looking for danger. She only saw Oka and Vanci returning from their trip to the QM. She whispered to T2, "Thanks, little buddy. I owe you one." She patted his head and stood up.
"About time you guys showed up. Fixed the landing gear eons ago, where you been?"
"Trying to find parts like we were supposed to, you cocky sop," Vanci replied.
"Did you find them?"
Oka shook his head, "QM doesn't have any spares. We called around to other ships in the 16th, see if any of them did. No luck. And we're not allowed to pilfer parts from other shuttles either, since they're all in working order still."
"So, we gotta disable the annihilators?" Meku tried to hide the fact that her eyes were burning, getting used to the light after being closed so long.
"How long was I out for? I must've needed it." She realized she'd been up for almost four entire days.
"Sadly, yeah. The sooner the better. Being down on power, even a little, is dangerous." Meku nodded in agreement with Vanci; she remembered just how close the Basilisks' torpedoes got over Randon.
"Alright kiddo, let's show you how it's done. We're getting some real work in today," Oka laughed.