Ordnance

D'Qar

The sign above the heavy double doors read Ordnance Bay AA4 (Ordnance Bay AA4). It was structurally identical to the five other Ordnance magazine facilities within the subterranean warrens of Resistance Base Cresh. Each magazine was separated from the other by ten meters of earth, and a half meter of durasteel reinforcement for good measure. Each contained an isolated fire suppression system and extra-robust blast doors, designed to contain the worst should it ever come to that. In the event of an enemy attack or even something as small as negligence, the bay could be sealed to prevent an explosive cascade from doing serious harm to the rest of the base.

The thing that made Ordnance Bay AA4 different from the rest was that, presently, the Resistance didn't have enough bombs and missiles lying about to warrant filling up all six of the cavernous magazines. That led to AA4 remaining empty and idle. And just as all schoolchildren know well and good, an idle ordnance bay becomes the devil's warehouse.

Of course, with such ludicrous levels of armor surrounding the magazine, AA4 swallowed even the loudest of sounds from within it's cavernous space. The only hint of it's true nature was the strand of Life Day lights hung around the perimeter of the blast door - a signal that something different was going on within.


Ham Warchenzbellsig was presently in some kind of state of being. His full cheeks had the flush of merriment where they weren't shrouded by his beard. He glanced to his left and right, nodding his head to the rhythmic pounding of fists against a table made of a reclaimed wooden barn door. There was something almost religious about this sacrament, like he'd stumbled on one of those Wookiee Good News shindigs where everyone sang nonsense and danced with a snake. At least that's what he'd heard once. A hazy patina of stim smoke hung overhead, not staying long before being sucked up into the high vents.

bang bang

"HOO!"

bang bang

"HAA!"

The table shook from the fist pounding, and it would have proved to be a real impediment to having a beverage rest peacefully. Fortunately, none of the dozen or so lads and ladies used the table for it's obvious purpose. It was a gavel for their strange tribal music. Each in attendance knew the rules. One hand for the cadence...

...the other hand for keeping one's pint of ale firmly affixed to the top of their heads. If any shameful soul were to spill a drop onto their person or elsewhere, then they had to down everything that remained in their glass in one go.

bang bang

"HOO!"

bang bang

"HAA!"

Ham's face buoyed up with a jester's grin. It was time for a new round.

"I've been to Coruscant!
I've been to Jakku!
I can name every race
That I would take a shag to!"

bang bang

"Twi'leks!"

The boasting circle passed to Ham's left, to Cadet Hoiyen.

bang bang

"Togruta!"

bang bang

All eyes went to the left of Hoiyen, to the next participant in the baudy charade.

Jain watched the proceedings from a difference, as per usual. He liked to tell himself that it was just his nature: as a marksman and recon pilot, you learned to see things better from a distance. The truth was far more simple though, and much more to do with Jain's weaknesses than his strengths. Growing up, his father and uncle had a name you'd heard of. During basic training it was worse. At first glance the attention and acclaim might seem like a blessing, but it quickly became a curse, people's affinity for him and expectations of him based far more on who he shared genes with than anything else. So he'd withdrawn, and learned to push people away. Keep them at arms length. A social repulsor field around himself to keep everyone at bay.

It was effective. Too effective, really. When you were as tall, muscular, and physically imposing as Jain was, any kind of distance you tried to enforce worked all too well. What had been intended to give him breathing room instead became an isolating barrier, trapped and alone within the bubble he'd crafted for himself.

Mostly alone, at least. Occasionally he found it within himself to allow someone past those barriers. Even then he was wary though, too committed to the persona he'd created to ever let himself seem kind, or caring. The closeness anyone felt with Jain was more proximity than sentiment; he became a tamed rancor, safe enough to stand near, but not someone you ever tried to get cozy with. Fortunately, his companion for the evening right now was intimately familiar with how that all worked.

"Can you believe these guys?" he grunted in disbelief, shaking his head and downing a sip of his drink. "It's like being on Republic Ranger camp with a bunch of kids."

"Everyone blows off steam."

Siloo managed a reply to pass her lips a scant second after the coolant tank rotgut they called whisky passed in the opposite direction. She didn't grimace, a sure sign that her shot - and the six before it - were dulling her revulsion.

"Drinking, gambling, fucking. Everyone's got something. You can't be whatever you are up there..."

Captain Jaska pointed up with her index finger, referencing the stars above and unseen.

"...and expect to turn that off just because you occasionally have to land."

She turned to look at the person who'd made the bad life choice to sit next to her tonight. Either they were stupid or...

"...whatcha drinkin', Shiny?"

It was what they called them - the ones who made their way over from the Republic. Most everyone had started off as a Shiny. Shiny bars on the uniform. Shiny gun. Shiny ships. All in service of a Shiny galactic army that didn't do much more than preen and look good. It's what set them apart from the Resistance. Here, everyone did the work. Nobody stayed Shiny for long.

Shiny.

Jain cringed inwardly at the term; and at Siloo's attitude as well. There was some warped, backwards attitude among the Resistance members, especially the pilots; that somehow being the kind of dregs and washouts who'd been scooped up by the Resistance early on were somehow superior to the Republic officers who hadn't been insubordinate little nerfshits and got themselves drummed out of service. Because apparently things like integrity, competence, and doing your damned job the way you're supposed to were reprehensible traits that no self-respecting Resistance pilot should ever lower themselves to.

Major Terius had managed to avoid the dubious pleasure of being closely acquainted with Captain Jaska back in her Republic days, but he certainly knew of her. Knew the reputation. Knew the infractions and insubordinations that pockmarked her service jacket so frequently they were practically punctuation. And here she was, trying to spout out sage wisdom as if she were some kind of gorram Jedi mystic.

Jain couldn't help a smile, not out of amusement but out of disbelief at the absurdity of it all.

"I dunno. Some cheap knock-off Corellian brandy, I think. Ain't the good stuff, that's for sure."

He shrugged, draining the last of his glass.

"Guess the Resistance just has to make do with whatever crap it can get it's hands on."

"It'll do."

Which wasn't out of modesty. Siloo wasn't drinking for the foreplay. If it were Alderaanian cask reserve or Dagobah moonshine, she didn't care. The alcohol was just a means of calibrating her instruments. Flying was the one thing she was good at. In space, she didn't have to push against norms and expectations and agendas. She had vector and thrust. Shields and weapons. Nothing had to be complicated. It all felt natural.

Siloo lined up another shot in mechanical fashion, metering out the liquor to displace the head space in the glass to a sliver. Once the task was done, she didn't contemplate it any further, and took the shot down swiftly.

He hadn't left.

Siloo still picked up the interloper in her peripheral vision, and eased her glass back to the table. Normally, the parched desert of her social graces were enough to make most chance encounters get the hint. Not today.

"So what's your excuse?"

His excuse.

It was a valid question, he supposed; one that he also wanted to know the answer to. Why the hell was he here? What was he doing, abandoning the New Republic in order to join up with this band of misfit Resistance fighters? This wasn't like the old days that his uncle always talked about - the days when you were choosing between being complicit against the crimes of the Empire, versus fighting the good fight with the Alliance. The New Republic were the good guys; serving the Republic was still a legitimate course of action. Instead he'd become an outlaw, taking matters into his own hands because the Senate decided it wasn't severe enough to intervene. An outlaw in service to a corrupt and disgraced former Chancellor, no less.

Perhaps for some that was enough of a motivation, but for Jain Terius, it wasn't. He wasn't that sort of guy. He didn't care about politics, or any of that stuff; he wasn't an armchair politician who sat there complaining about how much better the galaxy would be if people just did what he thought they should. It wasn't indifference, it was something else. Maybe he just didn't have enough faith in himself to be right on those matters. Maybe he just accepted that everything was far more complicated than the holonews made it seem. Or maybe there was just too much of his dad in him: maybe he just saw the galaxy in simple terms, and was content to follow the lead of better people who were more qualified and adept - and more interested - in dealing with all that politics crap. He was just an officer. A good officer. A loyal officer.

Except now he wasn't, and he didn't entirely know why. Uncle Soto would have commended him for doing the right thing; but then of course he would have. He was Soto gorram Terius, Alliance hero. His father would have disapproved completely; but again, of course the Corellian Terror wouldn't have approved of all this lawless vigilantism. The two largest influences on his life and psyche pulled in opposite directions, as they always did. So what had tipped the balance.

Jaden Luka.

Not just the General, either. Ocasta. Atreides. Tallen. Rübezahl. Names that he had been raised to respect, names that added credence and weight to the opinions of those who bore them. Jain didn't know what the right course of action was, but all those names seemed to; and who was he to argue with the veracity of those opinions?

"I don't know," he replied, his voice a mix of tired and distant. "But people I trust have decided this is a worthy cause, and that's good enough for me."

"Hahaha...karabast!"

Siloo swayed forward with laughter and inebriation, clinking her empty shot glass against his as an afterthought.

"I like that answer, Shiny. You're my kind of stupid. No politics, no philosophy, no country. Just a handful of mates saying saddle up, and you think why the fuck not? That's good shit."

In the far corner of the Ordnance bay, an aroma had been building steadily over the course of three hours. It smelled like food. Good food, but something that nobody could quite put their finger on. The closer one got to the far corner, the warmer it felt. It didn't take long to figure out why. Situated on a large tripod burner, a fifteen gallon pot burbled and simmered. A wreath of steam rose to the ceiling as the shirtless and sweaty Devaronian manning the pot lifted it's wide lid free, sliding in a ladle.

"Oooh wee. Dass right."

"Lil" Do Rondaux lifted the ladle just under his nose, giving it a sniff. By now, the smell had attracted a handful of perpetually-hungry sorts, who loitered around the threshold like panting dogs.

"Gimme dat root leaf dere cousin. Gon' need a lil bit mo."

Cousin. Tycho had lost count of how many missions he'd run with the big yellow bastard, but he'd still not quite managed to clock on to what this whole cousin business was about. Maybe it was a Devaronian thing, or some weird quirk of whatever backwater the hick trooper had grown up on. Maybe the guy had just taken one too many blows to the head over the years; that'd sure as hell explain what was going on with the incomprehensible stream of random word-sounds that tumbled out of his mouth most of the time.

Tycho wasn't entirely sure when chef's assistant had been added to the list of responsibilities on his service jacket; but whatever. He had enough experience standing around playing ingredient gopher for Rondaux to have some vague inkling of what particular variety of plant matter the Devaronian was now demanding.

"Look at them," he grumped, flickers of exasperation and derision in his voice as he watched the cacophonous spectacle that was unfolding over in the area of the bay that the pilots had claimed as their own. Consciously, he knew that the animosity he felt towards the Resistance's pilots wasn't entirely fair, or entirely earned. Daddy issues, and all that. Subconsciously though, he didn't give a mynock's ass.

"Bunch a' arrogant sons of bitches. Think they're so fancy, with their million-credit starfighters doing all the damn work."

A scowl formed across his brow; but Tycho's ordinary amiable features refused to let it really settle in, lacking the kind of intensity that the Sergeant was hoping for.

"Wouldn't last five minutes on the ground with a gun in their hand."

"Mm."

It was as close as an affirmative as Lil' Do had for his squad-mate as he set the pot lid to the side of a nearby cooler filled with suspicious contents. The Devaronian took the dried root leaf, crumbling it up in a broad-knuckled hand as the smallest flakes began to fall into the stew pot.

"Ain't truss no ship enough to fight in, mo am. Thass no way to live an plenty way to die. Lil' Do don't mind thumbin' he nose at de law, but he try and keep on the law of gravity's good side when he can."

Do passed an appraising eye over the pilots side of the ordnance magazine, giving a shrug as he stirred.

"Dunno, Brer Tycho. Some dem folk be soft, but dem others? Sissy Siloo gots the vinegar, hoo-ee. Bess believe she come at a stormtrooper meaner den a badger wit he ass on fire."

"Eh."

Tycho's arms folded across his chest out of reflex, body leaned back against the edge of the makeshift palette table that Rondaux had converted into his kitchen for the evening. Somewhere at the back of his mind, a faint hint of curiosity tickled, but Tycho knew better than to turn around and look at the various ingredients that were getting stirred into Rondaux's cook pot: in Tycho's experience, the Devaronian's cooking was a lot easier to swallow and stomach if you didn't realise what it was exactly that you were putting in your mouth.

"I've seen her slingin' fists around in here once or twice. She's all fire, no form. Good enough for a bar brawl, an' maybe against the old school Impy stormtroopers from back in the day, but these new models?"

He shook his head, dismissing the notion entirely. Something strange curled in Tycho's stomach as his attention lingered on Siloo, a nagging irritation that he couldn't quite quiet down. He knew why it was; hadn't been there to see it himself, but he'd heard the retellings enough times. Typical fighter jock; incapable of doing anything that wasn't at full thrusters.

"You hear about her deckin' General Luka the day he arrived?" Tycho asked, glancing vaguely in the Devaronian's direction. "Just walked up to him outta nowhere, an' slugged him one in the face."

"Heard de tale, mo am, sure as I gots ears. Lil' Do ain't say she got de cool and cold like de krewe do. Sissy Siloo, she hot hot trouble."

The Devaronian snorted his nose in a deep pull, turning away from the pot to spit a forceful wet shot on the ground.

"Still, dere things you can teach and things you can't. You spend a week on de bayou and you gon know how to row de pirogue or clean a pikobi. Can't teach mean, Brer Tycho. Gotta be in de blood."

"Hot Hot Trouble's sure as hell got somethin' in her blood, that's for damn sure."

The doorway in the distance clunked noisily open. Or at least, it was noisy if you were listening out for it. Most of the patrons here at the Resistance's makeshift drinking den were too consumed with their booze and their revelry to care who walked in and who didn't; but Tycho was always watching, almost hoping. Same as it always did, his heart froze for a second, peering up from behind his folded arms like a prairie animal surveying the horizon for predators. Same as it always did, it sunk back dejectedly when some random blonde strolled through; not the right person. It never seemed to be the right person.

The glum and glower in Tycho's demeanour settled in for the long hall, pressing down on his shoulders and forcing out a dejected sigh. This was the way it was in the Resistance, when you and your beau found yourself fighting the same cause in different directions. It was the way it had always been, Tycho supposed; and that baffled him, at least a little. So many of the people here on D'Qar were second generation freedom fighters; but it was hard to imagine that even being possible, given how hard it seemed to be to get a man and his wife in the same room at the same time.

"You nearly done with that?" he muttered to the Devaronian, finally disentangling his arms from one another. "I'm about five minutes from consumin' far too much alcohol, and I'd kinda like a little somethin' in my stomach b'fore I start."

Tycho's words seemed to stir the passions in the others gathered around the cooking station. Everyone looked like a hungry dog. They shifted their feet for sure, but their eyes never left the pot. Do caught the looks, and he gave a sharp-toothed grin like he had everyone hostage by the short-and-curlies.

"Dis here roux gon do what it do, cousin. Makin de roux kinda like layin down witcha main boo. Oh you can do it fast, mo am. Give dat honey four minutes of yo time. Or you can go gentle and take yo time wit de girl. Make 'er open up, eh-hee. You want fast, cousin, or you want it good?"

Do swirled the ladle around in a loop through the murky brown slick, moving in a half moon pass. He drew the ladle up, now brimming with that uniformly dark liquid and protein that most-assuredly wasn't in the shape of a ration cube. There was some sort of thing that was probably meat, unidentifiable veg, and something that looked like a giant red-shelled bug. Gingerly, the chef eased the steaming ladle to his lips, skimming the top with a light sip.

"Ooooh wee! Forget all that cousin, dis boo already ready, mmm mmm! You best fiiind yo mess kit, and get some a that crack-corn in dere first!"

Tycho shifted as Rondaux announced the completion of his culinary efforts, readying himself for Lil' Do's ladle. The duo had clocked enough mission ops and downtime together for Tycho to have learned the value of being close to the front of the meal queue with yiur mess kit close at hand. Partly it was a matter of hunger; but mostly it was about getting the prime stew pieces rather than the congealed scraps and remnants that sunk their way to the bottom of the cook pot.

The Sergeant offered an appreciative smile as Rondoux mounded the Dagoban cacophony of hearty ingredients into his tin, and fished out one of the thin slabs of bread from the ration packet to use as makeshift cutlery. The man behind him in the queue - a ground tech from the look of him - leaned forward to inspect the pot's contents; Tycho's hand gently caught hold of his shoulder, discouraging his curiosity.

"Best not t' look, friend," Tycho suggested, shooting him a knowing glance. "It's a symphony f' the taste buds, not the eyeballs. Best t' just get it in you an' not think about it too much."