Parental Duties
By Rey
Chapter summary: By now, Cara is used to fielding odd requests from unexpected individuals, chiefly Mando. It never gets old, though, strangely.
18. Cara: The Request
By now, Cara is used to fielding odd requests from unexpected individuals, chiefly Mando. It varies a lot, but the oddest was definitely helping train a rustic village of krill farmers to defend themselves while she had meant to just hide somewhere on the planet containing that rustic village.
Well, this particular request is like that, but… less understandable.
"So… you want me to see if there's anything here that can house fourteen kids. And if they can be registered at the school in different levels. And if I can source out basic supplies for all of them. what do you call basic supplies, anyway? And, umm, are you trying to run an orphanage or some such? I mean, it's good, I'm sure the kids'll be safe and happy with you, but… it… just doesn't seem to be you. And this is so sudden! I mean, you tried to drop the kid on Omera, once, not that it's totally wrong! Parenting is scary. But… just…."
She winces when, on the other end of the bad, noisy, glitchy connection, Mando lets out an audible sigh. She doesn't budge, though. She must know, or she won't be able to argue for it with Greef.
Well, Mando seems to realise the same, or something. He caves in, anyway.
His own version of caving in, that is.
"I went with Grogu to the Seeing Stone. But Grogu got… friends, instead of a teacher. We are on the way there, now. Just delayed by a solar storm. I would… appreciate it, if we could at least pick up supplies there, before we go elsewhere."
It's Cara's turn to let out a sigh. "What aren't you telling me, Mando? And who's Grogu? The kid?"
She snickers when he huffs exasperatedly, caught.
Any lingering shred of levity puffs out, though, when he reluctantly confesses that an Imp cruiser managed to track him and the kid to the Deep Core, though he is relatively sure that the solar storm must have scrambled any tracking devise put on Razor Crest.
Because she knows very well that Razor Crest was last on Nevarro, getting repaired and restocked, and no Imp cruiser had followed that ship here.
`Fierfek. We got traitors here, or at least one. Did an Imp pay Greef to put the tracker on that thing?`
She purses her lips, debates telling Mando about her suspicion, but in the end just says, "I'll look into it and clean the house. be safe, Mando. And do introduce your new kids to me when you can. Maybe just the pertinent data, first, so I can go shopping for them and sneak them treats so they like me more than you."
Mando's startled, protesting squawk is beautiful and an uplifting end to an unexpectedly fraught topic. Cara's lips manage to twitch, at least, hearing that. And then her game face is on, and she leaves her office for her nominal boss' for an apparently long-overdue interrogation.
Fortunately, Greef is in, and nobody is scheduled to meet him for some time yet, and his secretary is too cowed to try to eavesdrop.
Fortunately, as well, he recognises Cara's game face and doesn't try to placate her – not after the disastrous first-and-last time, that is. His flamboyant gesture and greeting of, "Cara! What can I help you with? Sit, sit," doesn't count. It's a Greef thing, after all, as she's learnt since the first time they met, united by Mando to storm the Imp base here for the sake of the green baby – lucky little thing, that one.
And, now, the lucky little thing is in terrible danger because of something that must have happened here.
The said lucky little thing has somehow spawned thirteen more times, too. Or did Mando not include his kid – well, first kid – in the count when he said fourteen?
Well, anyway, she doesn't bother to take a seat, though she tries not to be too confrontational when, having shut the door firmly behind her, she asks lowly, "What did you instruct the mechanic to do when Mando last came here?"
Greef looks mighty confused and splutters so. And, to her relief, it seems to be genuine.
She still doesn't let him off the hook, though.
"An Imp cruiser tracked Mando's ship to the Deep Core," she informs him in the same low, steady tone, even as she watches carefully for any twitch of expression or gesture.
It's… relieving, to see how shocked then upset he is. He is still her co-worker, after all, and she has even begun to like him, flamboyant gestures and all. she doesn't want to shoot him, and she doesn't want his job as magistrate, either.
He has his priorities straight, too, she reckons, as he then asks her with proper urgency, "Is he all right? And the bogwing?"
She nods. Because, if the kid wasn't all right, Mando would've been far more upset and not at all flustered. That guy is intense when it comes to his creed and his quest and his kid.
And now he has at least fourteen of them….
Speaking of whom? "They picked up more kids, though. I've been asked to pack up supplies for them."
She gives Greef a pointed look, and he gratifyingly slumps in place, chagrined and chastised.
"I'll see to it," he sighs. "And that damned mechanic, too."
She shakes her head. "Nah. You see to that traitor, I see to the supplies. He hasn't given me any data about the kids, anyway."
"Tell him I'm sorry and I'll screen people better?" he wheedles.
She snorts and smiles a little. "Afraid he'll bar you from the kid?"
Greef groans theatrically, but she can see that it's more than half-genuine, so she leaves with a parting nod and a lighter heart.
Besides, she hasn't told him how many kids they'll be innundated with, has she? She'll let him find out on the D-day.
That is, if Mando will even let those sprogs set foot on planet if he can help it, after what happened to get him into this situation….
`Damn. Bye-bye, good mood.`
She finishes the trek to her own office at the other end of the hallway with trudging feet and slumped shoulders.
And her mood only plummets further when she checks her comm station and finds a data packet there, sent attached to a mail whose message contains only: "Password: where did we meet for the first time and how many bottles of spotchka did you drink during the celebration?" Because, after she has downloaded the attached file and cracked the password, she finds the data that she has hoped for, but the contents of it…!
"How in the galaxy do I cover these many variables?" she groans, props her elbows on the desk and buries her face in her cupped hands. Because there are at least four age brackets there, and probably six species – `What is even a 'milaða'? and mixed with taung? Isn't it some ancient species that used to inhabit Coruscant?` – and some of the notes Mando jotted down for the rugrats…! `Why does even that rugrat require "clothes that are soaked in good emotions and/or memories"?!`
Cara has never been a logistics officer in her life. She was either a civilian who liked to travel light, a rebel shock trooper who couldn't get attached to anything or anyone, a jaded "peacekeeper" in a new, shaky peace whose job was to screen and keep guard on a senator's many, many, many belongings, or a runaway nobody hiding in a backwater, almost extremely rustic planet. She has learnt some logisticking since she agreed to help keep Nevarro safe as marshal of the New Republic, but arranging training times and guard duties and stocking up in the guard office isn't at all like shopping for fourteen kids with sometimes wildly different needs!
`Mando will pay.`