Chapter Text
When the rumor comes through, he doesn’t believe it. There’s always a rumor going around the ranks, and they aren’t worth the oxygen they waste. If it was true, it’d have made the disorganized mess they call Priority Chat.
What the priority was was never defined.
Still, there are looks . Not that he’s a stranger to them, but since Steady had been working with this battalion there had been fewer. Not few, never few, but fewer.
They weren’t his. That had been made clear. The assignment was temporary. As needed.
He didn’t know what they were waiting for. He was now an ARC-trained Commander, hand chosen by Alpha-17 as soon as he could justify pulling him back to Kamino. He understood it was meant to be a power play, a shot at his training, his trainer.
Steady had saluted and added a kama and a pauldron to his kit.
You hear the Marine died?
No one ever brought that to him, never said it to his face, so he never had to address it. But the words themselves sounded too impossible to be true. Any one of them could die any day. He knew that. It was war. And yet.
And yet.
No one ever asked him. The blockade was days away in hyperspace, and there’s no reason beyond his rank that Steady would have any intel.
He’d never even met the Marine.
*
“This way,” 17 waved him along and Steady followed. His borrowed battalion had gone on to their next mission, and Steady received different orders.
The silence from and about Marshal Commander Bacara persisted.
If he really was KIA, it was a better guarded secret than mission detail. Everyone knew comms didn’t get through the blockade often, but even Captain Rex hadn’t posted more than a mission report in cycles.
“Heard you did well.” The Alpha wasn’t looking at him as he keyed the door open.
Steady didn’t feel like he owed that a reply. “Objectives met.”
“They liked you.” 17 walked into the little office, put his bucket on a crate by the door, waved for Steady to do the same.
He’d rather not. He’d rather hear what 17 pulled him off the front lines to tell him, and get back to work. “They don’t have to like me.”
17 was smiling when he turned around. Not the usual sharp one that broadcast how much he was looking forward to the fight that would follow. This was smaller, more personal, something almost warm in his eyes that felt completely undeserved.
“They don’t have to,” the Alpha agreed. “But they do.”
As Alpha-17 eased himself down on to the makeshift furniture in his makeshift office, Steady stood, bucket in hand, torn between giving in and accepting this moment of comfort offered by someone who did not owe it to him, and pushing it away to do what he was trained to do, be a leader of men and fight a war.
“Is it true?” Steady asked, because this couldn’t be about anything else. He was a CC, distinguished himself as an ARC, but he’d never done anything to earn this level of intimacy.
17 was silent, and that was the most damning of confirmations. “Take a seat.”
It was gruff, almost an order, and Steady followed so he didn’t need to make it one. He sat, almost braced, sure in his bones that this moment was inevitable. The Alpha nodded, the smile gone, but that hint of warmth lingering. Maybe the two were closer than Steady knew. The veteran commanders shared complex histories Steady would never understand. Even the more junior commanders shared histories Steady didn’t understand.
17 shoved a small table rolling in his direction. On top of the near silent movement, a datapad. Steady picked it up, reviewing the list. Troops, assigned to his name. Assigned to the 21st.
Bacara was dead.
That shouldn’t be possible. Steady forced himself to read the datapad. It was a trooper resupply. Not nearly enough for the Marines, not nearly enough to replace their losses.
“If you’re going, you should take troopers with you.” 17’s voice was low, not soft, Steady didn’t think he’d ever heard him speak softly. “No confirmation yet. No one knows. But you’re qualified, and your… background makes you the man for the job.”
The Little Marine, they’d joked, back then. He wasn’t little anymore, bigger, broader than most of his brothers. A solid brick to build a wall. Was it a kindness or a cruelty to the men of Nova Corps? To replace their famed Marshal Commander with a newer model?
“I understand.” Steady held on to the datapad. There would be a long trip to familiarize himself with his new assignment, new personnel. He would begin preparations. There were troopers to ready, transport to arrange. Comms to send, but then, not many. Likely not more than one, but then, that one would be difficult.
“Stay a moment.”
He didn’t freeze, not really. There was just a breath of hesitation. 17 watched him with an intensity, but it wasn’t that of a trainer, or even a commanding officer. Steady had never really understood the vode, but he had learned to navigate them in a way.
“Sir.” Steady set the datapad down, gave the Alpha his full attention. All positions behind the blockade were vital, this one more than most. The look on 17’s face was worry, and it was only reasonable to expect it.
There was grey in the Alpha’s hair. Steady had never noticed it before. Not much, a few strands catching the light by his temples, some in the stubble on his jaw. 17 had been in this war from day one, lost too many brothers, and fought for a long time. They were made for this, but that never made the loss easier. If there were words to ease his mind, Steady didn’t know them, but he had to try.
“I will do everything I can, sir.”
That earned a little snort. “Not sure you know how to do anything else, kid, but things are different out there.”
He hadn’t been off Kamino for long, but Steady had seen as much action as any CC his age. It was always different, but it was also always the same. “Then I’ll adjust.”
17 reached out, around the edge of the seat, and pulled something up, balled in his hand, and threw it easily toward Steady
It was a kama, grey trimmed in Nova maroon, cut differently than his own standard black one.
“Adjust starting there.”
*
They’d gone from one end of the galaxy to the other, picking up and dropping off at every hub and depot.
Word of Commander Bacara’s death had still not crossed Priority Chat. Someone had to sign the forms to reassign Steady, but maybe some things were better left unsaid.
It was easy to imagine all the veteran commanders who would rather not consider the best of them being replaced by a speedie Commander with a half-dozen successful campaigns and a shiny new pauldron.
They were nearly belly up to the blockade. One more ship-swap approaching Ord Mantell and their big comfortable venator would return to safer travel lanes.
Steady led Alpha-17’s hand-picked new Marines on to Winder’s transport. It wasn’t GAR issue, and to be honest, Steady wasn’t even sure it was spacefaring, but then maybe that’s exactly what it took to run the blockade. The same could be said for her Commander, who looked more spacer than soldier.
“Commander.” Steady tugged off his helmet and clipped it to his belt before nodding to Commander Jet of Winder. “CC-6975, 21st Nova.”
The pause is a long one. Steady didn’t take it personally. Every time he introduced himself, a vod would think ‘not Bacara.’ Steady’d had a lifetime of it, but it was fresh for all of them.
So he would be patient, allow them the time they needed to see another commander in their friend’s place. Jet’s expression shifted from thoughtful to bereft for just a moment, and back to something wry.
Commander Jet looked him over for a moment, and then flipped a flashing silver coin, catching it and taking a quick glance. “Got a name, Commander?”
“Steady!”
There was one split-second between the coin and the question where Steady’s attention had been diverted. It was just long enough for one scout-quick vod to throw himself at the new Marines Commander.
Steady caught him, because the other option was to roll with the tackle and throw Jolly across the deck. The last thing Steady needed was a mostly-friendly brawl in front of the Winder Commander.
“It’s Steady,” he grunted as Jolly impacted, taking the weight with one bracing step before dropping the troublemaker unceremoniously. “Jolly and I did our ARC training together.”
Jolly popped up, as casual as a tooka. “As if I’d let you cross the blockade without me?”
There’s a pang of something in Jet’s expression as he looks between them. “Welcome aboard. You two, try not to blow anything up.”
*
His new Marines liked him better when Jolly was around. Steady could understand it. The vode found him strange on his own, but Jolly was more like them, spoke like them, knew their ways. In the days of travel, Steady had sparred with the troops, eaten with them, shared what little additional intel he had, but with Jolly around, they looked at him like maybe he could be a vod one day.
It had never happened before, but Steady had long accepted the future was hard to predict.
There were few troopers their age. Almost everyone 17 had selected had seen full combat duty somewhere else. Slowly, Steady began to learn their stories. Zips had lost most of his squad in a transport ambush on Vandor, and went back to Kamino to help with training. Henny was on Mimban with the Mud Jumpers.
It took time before they opened up, but once they understood Steady was quiet because he was listening, they began to talk. It wasn’t the easy teasing they had with one another, but it wasn’t the chilly distance of the first few days.
He shared their face, he could fight as well as any of them, and they were all going to go to the same icy hells together.
“You gonna grow a beard?” Jolly asked, pressed shoulder to shoulder in the small cargohold they used as a mess.
Steady blinked at him.
“The Marine had a beard, right? So, you should have one.” Jolly shrugged. “Maybe they’ll think you’re him.”
“Disgraceful.”
“Maybe they’ll think you’re his ad.” Jolly grinned sharper now. “Some forbidden fling with a bounty hunter.”
Steady only responded as far as one dry, sidelong glance.
“You’re going to have to tell them something.”
Was he? If any soldiers in the whole GAR understood that every single one of them - even the Marine - was replaceable, it would be them. Steady wasn’t fooling himself, he understood just how unwelcome he might be – a reminder of everything they had lost – but he was arriving with fresh troopers and a resupply. That would hopefully buy some goodwill.
“Why am I letting you come along?” Steady asked, keeping his concerns to himself.
“Because I’ve got orders to run intel with Valor behind the blockade.” Jolly punched his shoulder. “And because I wouldn’t let you do this alone.”
Steady felt eyes on them, and spotted Commander Jet watching them from across the room, something almost pained in his expression.
Status interrogative , Steady flicked in battlesign.
All clear , the Winder commander signed back.
Steady was pretty sure that wasn’t the whole truth.
*
Before their ship landed on Mygeeto, every fresh trooper’s comms chimed for minutes with new messages that were caught in the comms blackout.
There was a whole universe cut off behind the blockade.
Steady had known, but knowing it and living it were two very different things.
It would be his universe until the war ended, he was called back across the blockade, or he marched on. Those were the choices.
Jolly put an elbow into the side. “Want to let me do the talking?”
“No.” Steady didn’t even bother to glare.
“There are going to be questions–”
“I’ll answer them.” As best he could. He had questions of his own. All of those things would have their turn.
The lack of reply spoke volumes.
Jolly would await his pickup on-world with Nova. Then he’d be out running intel with Valor. It was the assignment he’d trained his whole life for. In a way, it all felt inevitable.
Steady had work to do.
He landed one sharp elbow to Jolly’s side. “I’ve got troopers to ready.”
The salute was as rude as Jolly could make it. “Yes, sir. Commander, sir.”
The troops were veteran. More than Steady had first realized as he got to know them. To a trooper, they’d been fighting on every front. He wondered how 17 had gotten so many of them at the ready on Kamino. The more Steady thought about his brief moments with the Alpha, the more he wondered about all the things he didn’t know, and the Alpha hadn’t told him.
“Sir.” Zips saluted, and Steady returned it.
He scanned the troopers busy doing whatever could keep them busy. There was tension in the room, a restlessness Steady knew. Travel time was not the same as being boots on the ground to them. Maybe for a pilot, but to them, the war was on the ground, with air support when they were lucky. These days in hyperspace weren’t combat ready, but they weren’t leave either. They were waiting, with the knowledge of what awaited them on landing.
And that landing was minutes away.
“We’re ready.” Henny nodded, and then looked to the brothers near him. They returned the nod. The ripple moved through the crowded hold, eyes on Steady.
He nodded back. “I know it. They will all know it.”
Even if it wasn’t his tongue, there was a rush in his blood when the calls of Oya Vode echoed off the durasteel.
*
The wind hit them first. The ramp wasn’t even half lowered when it whipped through, pulling all warmth from the hold. Steady shifted his shoulders, blocking what he could for Jolly beside him. Whatever their relative sizes when they’d met as cadets, Steady had grown into exactly what he was expected to.
He’d weather Mygeeto.
Jolly might need an extra layer of thermal blacks to get by.
They touched down on a rise just past the sprawling Marines camp. Steady led the troops down, Commander Jet to one side, Jolly to the other.
Barely a minute later, the Marines came up the rise to greet them.
Not many, a dozen or so with hover sleds and speeder bikes. It made it all the more obvious when their cheerful progress at the thought of a resupply faltered at the sight of the troops’ arrival.
“Jet, what the fuck?” A commander in hooded tabards more suited to a Jedi came forward. “I asked for more medical supplies, not future patients.”
Steady was stepping forward to meet him before Jet could get a restraining hold on his arm.
“CC-6975, Commander Steady, assigned to the 21st Nova,” he greeted Commander Keller.
“Assigned to do what exactly?” Keller demanded.
He had anticipated pushback. It was natural. Steady had no question about how big the boots were he’d be stepping into. But he had a job to do.
“Command staff.” Steady set himself more firmly on his feet. “Due to Marshal Commander Bacara’s death.”
“Bacara’s what ?”
The wording had been blunt, yes, but Steady had also been led to believe the Marines were direct. They had at least a week to accept the reality, however hurtful the reality was.
“Bacara’s not dead. He’s dark. Out on a mission with Commander Neyo.” Keller’s posture shifted to that of every exasperated medic Steady had ever met. “Listen, vod’ika….Don’t know where the kark up is, but Nova’s got all the commanders it needs.” Keller’s grumble was loud enough to be picked up on comms and Keller made no effort to hide it. “Bacara will never forgive me if we let you freeze to death. We’ll get you suited for the weather and send you back to the core on Jet’s next run. Come on.”
Steady did not follow, instead he nodded to the troopers behind him to start unloading the supplies to the awaiting carts.
“After we unload and my men are settled.” He was a commander with the Marines until he was told otherwise, and he would behave like it.
“ Your men ,” Keller repeated, before hitting his open comms. “Krestor, find a way to get Bacara on comms. We’ve got an al’verdikaad with delusions out here.”
Steady had no idea what an al’verdikaad was but he was sure Jolly would translate it in the most derogatory fashion for him later. Repeatedly.
Commander Jet stood on the ramp watching it all unfold. Laughing.