INTERSTELLAR HEARTBEATS [Star Wars The Bad Batch]

Chapter Nine- Going Down

"Ladies don't start fights, but they can finish them." -Saachi, probably

Saachi didn't have any nightmares that night, but what little sleep she did get was restless. Admittedly, that came with having a ten-year-old sleeping on your lap. Once she woke up, she spent a good thirty minutes staring at the stars in hyperspace. The pretty lights nearly lulled her back to sleep, but Hunter was handing out rations.

"Thanks," She mumbled, biting into the dry nutribar. They really wouldn't be so bad if they had some curry to dip them in. Had the Republic never heard of spices?

"Who makes this stuff?" Saachi asked, nearly choking on the crumbs.

"Ask the long-necks," Echo swallowed his own rations with an accustomed distaste.

"It is perfectly safe to consume. Consuming one ration bar provides a grown adult with all the calories they need, including approximately twenty-seven grams of fiber, sixty milligrams of Vitamin C, and 3500 milligrams of-"

"No, I get that, but does it have to taste so weird?"

Echo guffawed with his whole chest, and Tech adjusted his goggles as he pondered Saachi's question.

"That is a question I do not believe I have an answer to." And with that, he returned to the device he was working on.

"Can't that thing wait, Tech? We got pretty banged up in the impound lot, and I could use some help with the coolant systems," Echo said.

"In a moment," Tech waved off the request with a distracted tone that meant he was going to forget about it in just a moment.

Saachi stood up, stretching out her arms and legs and cracking her neck from being curled up in the navigator's chair for the last few hours. Such a movement made her realize just how badly she needed to use the refresher.

"Uh, Echo?" She said in a small voice.

"Yeah?"

Saachi took a deep breath, feeling like a youngling on their first day of school. "Where's your refresher?"

"To the left of the gunner's nest," Tech answered, as if she had asked about the weather on Tatooine. Just what had she been so worried about?

Saachi made her way to the back of the ship, carefully climbing over Omega and Gonky sprawled across the hold.

"Omega?" Saachi paused.

"Yeah?"

"Is that my datapad?"

Omega was quiet, before insisting "No," in a tiny voice.

Yeah right. Saachi shook her head, before spotting the door Tech had indicated. It was just barely big enough for Wrecker to squeeze through. For the size of the ship, Saachi wasn't expecting much, but she certainly wasn't expecting the stench to hit her like an AT-TE.

She braved a look inside, squinting at the stench as she remembered what their barracks had smelt like. She hadn't noticed what the ship itself smelled like, but she had adjusted to it after the hours in-flight. The sudden shift to the fresher was enough of a difference to make her cough.

"What died in here!?" She shrieked.

"Oh, uh, sorry?" Wrecker blushed bashfully, and Saachi was immediately humbled.

"You know what, nevermind, at least there's clean toilet paper," She took a deep breath and entered the refresher.

The refresher units on most starships looked identical, with the exception of fancy starliners like the Halcyon. The plasteel had been white at one point, but had yellowed over the years. Everything- from the floors to the vac-tube to the sink unit- were all the same color. Some knots of hair found refuge in the corners with the dust bunnies and dried clumps of soap, and Saachi found herself mentally scolding these boys who were supposed to be adults, but some pitying part in her mind reminded her that the Bad Batch was a special operations squad that was constantly running from one mission to the other and any of their precious downtime was spent with naps, getting a proper meal, or training for their next mission. She couldn't blame them for choosing to do literally anything else over cleaning, but if all six of them were going to be living on this ship for an undetermined amount of time, it had to be kept cleaner than this.