"What did you do in the navy?" Vau asked as he reached down to haul her up. He grunted when she accepted and let him boost her to the higher vantage point.
She kept up… she just took longer climbing than him. She was less sure-footed and he had probably eight or ten inches of height on her. She glanced up. Watched as Mird launched from a tree trunk to soar to the next. Blew air out of her cheeks and wished it was just that easy.
"Um. Typed mostly."
He lifted his brow and let out a long-suffering sigh. "Burser's office?"
"As a matter of fact I put in some time there. Ended up doing some resource allocation for a tactical unit."
"Was that important or does it just sound fancy?"
She clucked her tongue at him and just hopped off the other side instead of taking the three long steps he did. "I like your boots," she told him instead.
He glanced down. "I like yours. Somebody taught you to lace them well."
She had them crossed and doubled back exactly the way he'd have recommended so that she got max support for her ankles and maintained flexibility. And, every time he'd seen her change her socks she'd done them up with quick, sure motions so she was obviously an old hand at it.
There were times her eyes made her seem ageless. Then there were times that the expression on her face made her seem like an absolute child. The clear smile she wore when she beamed over at him was one of those. He could practically see her wiggling her toes in the protective footwear.
"Picking your own gear is the absolute best part of getting out," she crowed. It made him chuckle. She sighed happily. Looked out.
Then the pleasure just melted out of her and she fluttered her fingertips at him, beckoning him to her and sinking low beneath the cover of the huge fern.
He blinked through settings, hitting his infrared. Picked up the patrol.
It was meters and meters away. Just dots. But more than a few of them.
He heard her swallow and inched closer, crouching around her.
"I've got you," he whispered. "Can you tell what they are?"
She shook her head. "I can just feel mean. Can you hear them?"
He strained, couldn't pick anything up on the external yet.
"Is your hair organic?" he asked her.
"What?" she snapped, glancing over her shoulder at him.
She wore it in a long tail down her back. It had seemed black to him when they met, the light revealing it to be a dark, deep, rich indigo. He tapped the smattering of blue dots at her temple.
"Real or fake?" He had to know. Plus it made for one hell of a distraction technique. He could practically smell her panic. "Is the blue natural?"
"Um. Yeah. Real. Lots of people have freckles. Shut. Up."
"Breathe through your mouth. Soft," he warned her in an undertone. He reached up, popped off his helmet. Met her eyes and demonstrated, the air barely shifting between them.
She nodded, her eyes wide. The tongue darted out to moisten her lips.
"We're far enough off the main trail that they shouldn't even notice us," he reminded her when the sound of the patrol carried faintly to him. He wished he had a probe he could send up, see what the hell they were doing.
N'Dara watched his eyes defocus. Tried to sense the intent of the group. Were they actively looking or just making their way from one location to the next? Vau slipped his buy'ce back over his head and sealed it. Drew his rifle around and rested the butt on the ground between their feet. Flicked his thumb over the safety.
From the sounds of it, at least one member of the approaching group was all-out thrashing the hell out of underbrush with something. They remained distant enough that his infrared just picked up vague humanoid shapes. Thick, though. Tran, he'd bet on it. At least most of them.
He reached forward, shook his head, and stopped N'Dara from drawing her side arm. Lifted his finger to where his lips would be. First chance he got he was getting her an earpiece and teaching her some basic fekking hand signals. He didn't want to lose the extra advantage his HUD gave him just so she could read his lips.
It was easy to track the patrol's movement even without the sensor in his bucket. N'Dara's jedi-radar worked just fine and even without line-of-sight on them her eyes tracked their path as they drew even and then moved past. They stayed hunched down, waiting. When Mird slunk up to join them Vau didn't even have to remind the beastie to stay silent. The avid gold eyes stared up at him, anticipating.
The man caught the woman's hand before she could reach for the strill.
Not a good time to stroke it—not in hunting mode, keyed up and ready for a hunt. He didn't want N'Dara to encourage Mird and sure as hell didn't want the provoked animal to startle and bite her.
She squeezed his hand reassuringly. Like she thought he'd reached for her for comfort.
Inside his helm he rolled his eyes. Couldn't help but admit that he felt the change in her as she sent out waves of steadfast calm. That was fine. If it centered her to think he needed it… whatever. It couldn't hurt Mird to catch those same soporific vibes. The drip of the rainforest and the quieting heartbeats in his ears seemed almost hypnotic as they waited for the sounds of the patrol to ebb completely.
"At least we know we're headed the right direction," he hummed under his breath.
"They were so angry. Disgruntled. Just… mean."
"I counted eleven. At least half of them Trannies. I want to give it a second, then I'm going to go look at their tracks."
"Why?"
"To satisfy my curiosity."
"They were moving too fast to be looking for prints beside the road," she complained.
"What?"
"Why were they beating back the brush if they weren't looking for signs of passage?"
He shook his head. "Let me look and I'll be right back. Stay here. Stay with Mird."
She just stared up at him, swallowed. Those big eyes she hid behind the shooting glasses stayed on his face as he looked down, made some gesture to his beloved pet. The animal sat back on its haunches, its face setting in what could only be lines of perturbed disappointment.
"You can hunt later," he murmured, stroking the gold fur under his chin.
Then he was up, away.
She could feel him, but it felt like the same swirls of placid calm that had driven her crazy at the temple. Soft eddies of curiosity, exhilaration, and some caution. Mostly that damnable unwavering self-assurance. Mird looked up at her, cocked his head and laid his chin on her knee. It was obviously unafraid and decided that if its master had left she should take up his slack and scratch the itchy spots having a knobby head generated.
She obliged. Of course she did.
When Vau dropped back down beside her he actually laughed to find Mird belly up, tongue hanging out and skeins of drool adding to the atmospheric humidity, as she rubbed his belly.
"You two are ripe for the picking. You didn't even flinch."
"I knew it was you."
He'd managed to forget for a second that she did have that extra-sensory array. Mird just cocked his head to the side and thrashed his tail.
"Oya!" he whispered to the strill. Pointed up high. Another series of hand gestures sent the strill scurrying back up a tree.
They'd marched for what felt like miles before the strill came running back, tail lashing and his body language pleased as could be.
"What did you find me, little gold Mirdy?" N'Dara asked, crouching.
A heavy foot trod through the underbrush, twigs crackling and vines shivering.
"Doll face, meet Enacca."
.
.o0o.
.
N'Dara's hands had automatically gone for a weapon at the sound of the Wookie's approach.
Now she relaxed it. Stood straighter as if she could lengthen her spine through sheer will.
The wookie only had a couple inches on the man, but she outweighed him by a good forty kilos. He obviously held her in some affection, because the Wookie automatically reached out to slug his arm. He didn't even move and if he'd braced for it N'Dara couldn't tell.
The newcomer offered her hand in a show of good manners.
"I just have to say this," the woman gushed. "You are the prettiest Wookie I've ever seen."
She caught the back of Enacca's hand with her left.
"May I?" she asked before lying it on the silky fur.
The huge ally nodded her consent and yowled her endorsement to Vau in wordless grunts of approval. N'Dara's fingertips drew the rich brown strands through her fingertips. Then she grinned guilelessly up into the dark brown eyes. To her mind they seemed perfectly rimmed as though the Wookie spent her morning titivation adding kohl in thick lines to surround the rounded almond shape of them. The human wrinkled her nose in appreciation of Enacca's delicate, black-tipped muzzle.
"I wish I could draw. May I take your photograph?"
Enacca tilted her head back and yodeled her approval. Posed readily for N'Dara's holo-imager when it was produced. Vau made the appropriate noises of irritation and impatience. Smiled, though, when the woman demanded he stand for one. Took a couple shots of the two females together. Grinned when N'Dara swept up Mird to hold in one of them, too. Clucked his tongue to make the strill look his way before capturing the image.
He swapped places with Enacca when the Wookie gestured for him to stand with them. Handed off the holo-imager and swung his arm around N'Dara, reaching to pet Mird.
Smiled down at her.
The Wookie roared her frustration at his movement and he stood still as ordered for the next series.
The one of them looking at each other was easily the best of the lot.
"Copy those to me," he demanded, offering his comm'link.
The human female complied while they shared a quick meal with the newcomer. She liked Enacca immediately and immensely. Laughed when the Wookie repeatedly brought her own hands through the hair she'd looped into a loose tail under her armored cap.
"She thinks you're every bit as exotic-looking as you think she is," Vau gestured.
"I tried to dye my hair brown once," N'Dara admitted, half turning to the furred female. "I was aiming for exactly this color. Ended up with something like three-day-old shit."
That made both of her companions laugh.
"I'm serious. It got even worse as it faded. I was so grateful we wore covers. I could keep it braided up tight and keep my back to the wall and almost nobody noticed. I nearly took my fingers to the bone trying to scrub it out."
"Vanity goes before a fall. What about the…" He wiggled his fingers slowly down the front of his face. "How were you going to change the dot-to-dot landscape?"
"Lots of people have freckles, Sergeant. Lots of people."
He lifted his brows. "None like yours, kid. Not in most navies. Hard to take somebody serious if they're threatening to dock my pay while you're trying to make cloud-pictures from their speckle pattern."
She looked up at the Wookie. "Before you leave, could you pretty please rip both his arms off for me?"
Her behest was met with laughter from both parties. They got down to business, broke camp, and headed out.
Enacca moved nearly silently through the trees, at times taking to the canopy with Mird to swing from vine to vine.
"I could do that," N'Dara gestured. Her eyes said she was itching to give it a try.
Vau sucked in a deep breath. "I'd like to say I trust myself to, but the truth is… with this shoulder I'd probably kill myself. I don't have a hankering to try it without a safety net."
"What's wrong with your shoulder?" she asked, instantly alert.
"Nothing," he said. "Just… I've spent decades wearing it out. It's just one of those things. You'll get there someday, doll face."
"Did you hear me say my name?"
"Which one? I heard you babble for about two years when I asked you."
"Just because your parents stuck you with a single syllable-"
He interrupted before she could get going. "What I can't figure is how they fit all that on an ID tag. Let alone the back of your shirt. What'd they do at mail call? Hell… poor postmaster probably had to gear himself up to-"
She huffed. Shoved past him to move up the trail far enough that she couldn't hear his never-ending litany of complaints vis a vis overwhelming etymology.
Vau couldn't say he minded, seeing as the trek led uphill and the woman was built the way a woman should be. She'd swapped her long pants for shorter, knee-covering ones with straps and buckles and what looked like reinforced thickness just where she'd need the support when she knelt. Looked hot as hell, that strip of pale skin between her leggings and the heavy-duty boot socks that protected her calves from her boots. They were pink. He wondered where the kriff she'd found pink boot socks on an occupied world after escaping from a POW containment cell. Let himself tuck that thought away to watch the heart-shaped buttocks as she climbed the trail ahead of him. She'd ditched the foul-weather over-tunic. No rain in sight. Teaching her to wear the pack the right way served him as well as it served her, he decided as he kept part of his mind on their surroundings and let his brain indulge in the scenery before him.
Nope. He didn't mind letting her take the lead at all.
Enacca swung down as they approached the turbo-laser battery. He'd seen it. In vids, in his dreams, in waking nightmares. He wished he could have talked to the other lads from Delta. Reassure them that he was on it, that he'd bring their brother home. Ask them just what exactly had happened that night.
He had the after-action report.
He had asked Jaing Skirata to send him any layout schematics specific to the battery here.
The Null ARC had sent this instead.
He'd pulled it up when they got closer, just to familiarize himself with the blueprint, intending to simply look it over while he ate the papurgaat that Enacca had tossed down. So he read it crunching an apple, like it wasn't the most heart-rending thing he'd ever laid eyes on. Just read and chewed. Chewed and chewed and chewed and made himself swallow. Studied the words they'd generated while he forced himself to take another bite. Just take a bite. Puncture that crisp skin, tear through the juicy pulp of it, and act like it was all normal while he reviewed the way a man he'd trained had been overwhelmed, lost to contact, and left at the demand of the supervisory jedi. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. Harder, get it down. Bite. Chew. Chew. How they'd attempted contact and requested belay of that command in order to pursue. Chew. Chew. Just chew. Then the accounting they'd demanded of his boys—what equipment they knew Sev was carrying. What gear they suspected he'd had on him. Swallow. Swallow it Walon. Fekking swallow it. He hesitated before he took that next bite.
Turned and hurled the remainder of it into the jungle.
N'Dara looked up at him in surprise.
He just passed off his data'pad and ducked his head. Tried to breathe. The heat gave him an excuse to wipe his brow, rub his eyes.
She was soaked, too. Deep vees of it darkened her neckline front and back. It dripped down her face, darkening her hair and adding color to her pale cheeks. He felt the clamminess of it as she reached out to him as she read.
Her hand closed around the side of his neck. He was sweating now, too. His suit kept him comfortable in most places, most climates. There was only so much it could do, though, and the minute he popped his bucket he lost environmental seals.
"I'm so sorry," she told him. "There's a reason they want to know."
"I know," he said mournfully.
She looked at him. "The tech, the kit… his specific gear. If he'd had anything experimental or had been carrying a courier pouch or-"
"I know," he said again. "I get it. I know why they needed the information."
He leaned his head against the cool of the stone that speared up out of the earth. Just looked past her in defocus for a second.
"He thinks they left him. Wherever he is, they couldn't get to him. He thinks they left him behind. Or maybe he thinks they're caught somewhere, too. But he's not with his brothers and N'Dara, if you knew this man like I do? That's not a good headspace for him to be in."
She looked at him. Shifted slightly from her crouch and knelt before him.
"May I?" she asked, gesturing with her other hand.
He lifted his head and let her put her palm to his temple. Closed his eyes at the comfortable feeling of just taking orders for a change. Of being one of many, one of the masses, taking orders, complying with them, and passing them down the line.
"Sev?" she asked softly.
He nodded. "RC-1207."
"Bring him to the forefront. Let me see him."
He took a deep breath. Felt stupid. But he'd seen Bardan Jusik do some insane things. Worked with Etain Tur'Mukan and watched her rip apart a mind without even laying hands on the man. Held her hand while she brought forth life in a full-sized hunk of a baby boy in a gestation just over half as long as it should have been.
"He'll look just like all the others."
"You know better than that," she reminded him.
He nodded. Let his eyes close. Thought of the man he sought.
Saw him first as a little boy. One of hundreds. Thousands. Different from that first moment their eyes had met. Scared and ori'ramikadyc from the get-go. Those big, fathomless eyes just eager to please, begging for approval, and willing to do anything to get it. To try harder, work harder, dig deeper, be better. Until he was best.
"You should have told him you loved him," she chided softly.
"I know."
He swallowed. Thought of the man he'd clapped on the shoulder the last time he'd seen him. They'd lived through so much. He'd come to think of them as infallible. Indestructible. Immortal.
He hadn't said anything to him, not specifically. Not even Stay alive! or any of the bullshit warriors said to each other because they knew that death was a very real part of what they did.
The lump in his throat burned when he swallowed now.
The woman shed his tears for him. He saw them when he opened his eyes.
"I'll know," she whispered. He palmed her cheek. Brushed his knuckles down the other one. She lifted her face. Stared into his eyes. Nodded. "If I find him, I'll know. When you have to go back to your family, I'll know if I come across him. I'll be able to follow his aura."
"I'm not leaving without him."
"It would be foolish to continue this pursuit, if we don't get new leads. We're at risk every time we take a step. The longer we blunder around here the more chance that we're next."
"Put your name in my 'pad," he told her. "The whole thing. I want to see what records the GAR kept on you."
"Why?"
"Because I'll know what records the Empire has access to that way."
She typed it out.
N'Dara Jouselle Pek-Marring'tionne.
"Great Darakaer of Irmenu. It's just as bad as I thought it was."
Her face fell. "You are such an absolute dick. Just an absolute and total dick."
He gave her a half-hearted smile. Clicked his cheek and lifted his brows.
"Yeahhh…"
He turned as the Wookie crept quietly toward them. Nodded his understanding of her plan. Turned to translate it for the woman.
"Okay, Navy. So here's how this is going to play…"
She shook her head.
"Uh-uh. This is where I get to fall back on what made me. S&R is my gig. You may be the jungle-man extraordinaire, but I can feel currents of what was. You follow my lead. After I do my sweep we can hit the control depot for hard data."
He barely had time to agree before she was gone, Enacca right behind her. Jerked his buy'ce back on and secured it. Unslung his rifle and flicked the safety off.
"Hustle, sweet cheeks."
He turned to her when he crouched behind the gun port. "Did you seriously just call me sweet cheeks?"
She reached out like she would stroke his face through the helmet. Gave him a saccharine smile.
"But you spend all that time, morning, noon, and night, making sure you're so smooth and shiny for your boys."
If he hadn't been armored up he'd have bit clean through her finger when she tapped it where his chin should be.
"One of us is not going to live through this," he grumbled.
Enacca's yowl of amusement didn't change his mind, it just opened up another option.
"You need a bucket. I'm tired of having to wait for you to pay attention to what I'm trying to tell you," he bitched.
"A bucket?" she asked. "I promise you, carrying my shit in a bucket is not going to make me listen to you with any more reverence than I do right now, oh mighty Sergeant-ness."
He tapped his head. "Bucket. Buy'ce. You spent time around my guys and you never heard it called a bucket?"
"The time I spent around your boys was mostly talking them out of their gear, then talking them into living through whatever befell them next," she corrected.
She felt him look at her. "Healer?" he asked.
"Sometimes. Ostensibly quartermaster staff. But it played into the other thing."
"The tactical division resourcing?"
"See, you do listen when I talk. I'm so proud of you."
Enacca's throaty amusement didn't improve his mood. She ducked around, following the ex-jedi, ex-maritime noncom. Navy suited her, he decided as he watched her hair glint in the sun. Most of the time it shone as black. When it lit up like that you could see every shade of midnight known to man. Oceans should have it this good. Skies would crush suns to have a chance at finding that color as they darkened.
"What's your favorite color?" he asked her as he slammed back down beside them. They scanned, each with their own skill set and resources, looking for any sign that their presence was known.
Enacca answered. Green.
N'Dara just frowned at him.
"For your beskar'gam, when we get him out of here. I'll owe you."
"I'll think about it."
Enacca yowled under her breath and fanned out a length of that hair.
"Too cliché," Vau objected. The woman glanced over her shoulder at her own hair, then over at the Wookie, then him. "Turquoise, maybe. Or teal. That's as close as I'd go. Although you're right. A nice, dark green would be pretty on her, too."
The Wookie was bent on arguing with him. If it was green she wanted it to be pale green. Like the luminescent algae that lit the deep pools under the mountains.
"Do you two mind," N'Dara snapped. "I'm trying to pay attention to-"
A thump echoed around the courtyard, under their feet it felt like, and through the very steel he leaned against. Both females instantly whipped their heads to the left. He sighted up that direction. Did a 360 scan in his HUD. Licked his upper teeth in anticipation of the fight.
"Ready to run, sweet cheeks?" the new woman in his life asked him.
He shifted his feet under him. Angled the barrel in the opposite direction.
"You say when…"
Enacca's low yarbled voice had the woman half-up and scurrying around to take shelter on the opposite side of the turret.
When Vau followed the Wookie at her grunt of command he felt his guts knot up.
N'Dara was walking as delicately as any ballet dancer across a cable that stretched from embankment to embankment.
The ground was littered with the remains of a crashed warship. Her eyes seemed fixated on it. He wondered if she could feel the dead and how they'd died. Wondered if the vision called to her. If she'd served on a similar ship and if it would haunt her dreams, that evidence of what the GAR could wreak. It wasn't only the boys in shiny white who suffered and died in this war. More Sep blood was spent than most people wanted to admit.
It was a long forty minutes, interspersed by whatever the hell that thump was, before he made his way to the last gun emplacement.
"He didn't die here," she told him triumphantly. "And when they took him down he was counting. What was he counting?"
Vau flinched. Looked at her. Sucked in a deep breath.
"4,982."
"What?"
"That's how many clones died at Geonosis. Four thousand, nine hundred and eighty-two. In two days of fighting. Your people got them killed. Sent special ops troopers over the hill with no objective other than rescue the jedi, we must, from Master Yoda. Just dropped them into a hot LZ. They got mowed down by the dozen just getting off the ships. I didn't lose a damn one. Not until the very end. There was a bombardment as they were called to exfil and a squad of my guys got separated from each other. They weren't meant to operate as infantry, but they did it. Then they got busted up trying to get back out."
"Why was he counting how many clones died that day?" she asked him. "Why would he have been counting as they took him down?"
He shook his head. Frowned. Removed his bucket to rub at his forehead.
"Sev meant to kill a bug for every one of his brothers who died on Geonosis."
The Wookie hummed sorrowfully beside him. Reached to rub his shoulder.
The jedi shook her head. "I don't understand."
"He kept a tally of Geonosians he killed." His face cleared and he jerked upright. "He kept a tally of how many he had left, to avenge his brothers for Geonosis. He only kept up with bugs, we all called 'em. Other guys, they kept up with kills. He kept up with bugs. Just his, too. Not his squad's. Not total casualties. His confirmed takes."
"Why is that good news?" she asked him cautiously.
Vau looked out over the horizon. Felt the ground shake under the colossal thump again. Banged back against the permacrete embankment with his forearm.
"Because if he was counting down as he was swarmed, that means he wasn't taken by Trannies. I'm looking for a unit that posted Geonosians, too, and I know when. Now I just need an in with the Trade Federation."
She was watching him with wary eyes.
"I don't have a contact within the Trade Federation."
Enacca yowled. Both heads jerked together and Mird whined against his legs. The sound came after, Vau realized. They could feel it before he did. Maybe something in the beskar blocked some soundwave approaching or something. The percussive force of whatever was jacking its way toward them must be incredible.
"She thinks it's time to bang out of here. Her goal is Trannies. This is her home and they enslave her people. Torture and rape and maim."
"I'm aware," she intoned.
He whipped his head around. "That's right. You so rarely seem the victim. Forgive me."
"I'm not a victim."
He nodded. Inclined his head toward her.
Wanted that explanation like he'd never wanted to shake a story out of someone. How did you get caught by Trandoshans and supposedly held, then get out without a mark on your face? How did a single individual even manage to escape from their hold once they dragged you down?
He shook his head.
Nodded at Enacca when she misunderstood him.
"Yes! Yes! I know! I don't blame you! No. That's not what I… that's not… will you just listen? I wasn't answering you. I was thinking!"
He made a face at her when she boxed his ears like he was a cub.
N'Dara reached for her wrist. "Enacca. I can't tell you how much I appreciate everything you've done. If there's anything else you find that might help me, or if there's anything I can do for you while I'm looking for the men who were taken at the same time I was…"
The Wookie reached down and embraced the woman. Took her pad and pulled up a holochart. Clicked a locale. Marked two others, but insisted there was a command bunker that the GAR had drilled deep into the mountainside so that they had unfettered access to the circling satellites.
N'Dara looked pumped instead of cowed. It was thousands of miles that particular path would require them to traverse. Over and through every type of terrain this planet offered and during the height of summer.
Fine. If she was up for it, he could hack it.
He leaned down. Picked up his bucket and laid his palm on the ground.
I'm coming, son. You hold on just a little longer.
