THE RECRUIT

USK: Comrades

Classified Imperial Base
49 KM, NORTH
Daro
LST: 04:25:09 // DAY: 18
RC-5570

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
SUIT SEAL ENGAGED.

Mech's eyes snap open. Clear liquid runs off his visor. Drowning. I'm drowning! His brain screams at him. It rained again and the stream overflowed. He instinctively coughs even though his suit could safely be sealed for thirty minutes in space or under water. He rolls onto his knees. He expects to be surrounded by water but the woobie shifts under him. No water.

His eyes land on a red face grinning from ear to ear. Black tattoos mix with the darkness of the night.

"I liked it better—" He sighs disengaging the seal on his suit by taking off his helmet. "—when you were being nice."

Taipan takes a drink from her water canteen crouching by the tent. "I'm just doing what you ordered me to do."

"Right," Mech says laying back down.

"I made food," Taipan says standing.

Mech looks at her raising his brows. "I'm concerned to know the ingredient list."

She just smirks smugly and walks around the tent and out of view.

Mech sighs and crawls out of the tent grabbing his deece and helmet. His eyes grow wide at a small fire. It pops a safe distance from the heat generator. Something gamey and aromatic swirls in the air.

Mech shakes the grogginess from his head coming up next to Taipan. "What in the world?..." He says putting down his helmet and rubbing his injured shoulder.

A large piece of meat had been skewered and set on two sticks over the fire. Taipan cuts off a slice from the leg.

"It could use some seasoning," she says stuffing the piece of meat into her mouth, "But it still tastes better than those blasted ration bars."

"Don't tell me you got this from—" Mech glances around and spots exactly what he was thinking.

A massiff carcass hangs from a nearby tree limb strung up with a grapple shot line. Its head is gone and gutted from its sternum to its hind leg, the other leg is missing. All its insides were pulled out and piled next to the tree trunk. Its skin is peeled back like taking off a pair of blacks.

Mech's jaw drops a fraction.

He says rubbing the bridge of his nose, "You are officially the strangest person, creature, animal, whatever you are, that I have ever met." But that is very Mando-like. Cooking something that tried making a meal out of you.

"Eat," Taipan says holding out a slice of the massiff's leg to him.

He looks at the charred meat then at Taipan.

"Eat."

He hesitantly accepts it with his index and thumb looking it over. He slowly takes a bite and has to pull it with his teeth to rip it apart. He chews carefully. The outside is tough but the inside melts on his tongue. The flavor reaching all the corners of his mouth. His eyes widen.

"Good right?" Taipan says rotating the leg.

Mech takes a seat by the fire still savoring the piece in his hand. "It's been a while since I've eaten something like this."

Kal'buir— Papa Kal— once said if a woman can cook as well as she fights then she's a keeper. Sergeant Skirata always had a way with words. Wonder what he and Omega Squad are getting up to know. Hope it's nothing good. Give 'em hell verd'ikae.