Worth: A Star Wars Story (ON TEMP HIATUS)

17. Guardians of the Republic

"So, let me get this straight... you and Ryd'ika are playing a kid's card game for fun and entertainment?" It was just Tor and I that morning in the technical break room, sipping bad caf while he was thumbing through his deck of cards with a dead serious look on his face.

"Kando," Tor looked up with what I could only call a long suffering sigh and a pitying look on his face, "this game is more complex than Grek, alright? Besides, our team is good. Talen only beat us by one card this time. I think I've got him on lock for single's. No way he's beating me."

It was hard for me to keep from laughing at just how serious Tor was about the whole thing, though the second the door open, he shoved the deck quickly into one of his pouches and coughed loudly as Ryder himself plopped down at the table with us looking like he wanted to fall into a hole and die.

"Why is Fox the way that he is?" He asked as he pulled off his helmet and set it down on the table, slowly turning to look at me.

"It's just how they made him," I shrugged as I turned my attention back to the newspad I was reading. "Pretty sure they shoved a rod up his sheb when they pulled him out of the tank and never took it out."

I heard a small series of giggles behind me and turned to see Jek and Rys walking in snickering. "Ooh," Rys sneered, "the Captain is saying bad things about the Marshal Commander!"

"Fox and I are batchmates. What's he gonna do? Pull seniority on me?" I gave my eyes a good-natured roll. For as much as I did rib on Fox, he was competent. And we were batchmates. He got tapped for Commander training from a young age, though. For as much as he annoyed me, he was still my brother. 

The Guard was a smaller group of Clones compared to most of your big legions. We all knew one another to an extent, so when you had down time it was easy enough to fall in with a group even if they weren't your regular bunch. Jek and Rys pulled up their seats next to us and sat down while we waited for Red and Grek to finish up their remedial training that they got assigned for... well, explosive problem solving and maybe destroying half a ground floor of a building while we were stopping a spice trade. For a while, we all just sat there trying to relax. What precious down time we had, we used to catch up on things. Tor pulled up the holonews ad we listened to the updates on the war and the news out of the Senate. We knew about some of the news as it happened thanks to the standard guard rotations we took around the Senate building. The Senate Guard were usually supposed to handle security, but considering the state of the galaxy, the Chancellor had recommended that we help supplement security. It wasn't terrible, normally. The upside was that we got to hear all of the decisions before they hit the streets, and it was especially useful when it involved us.

"Guys!" The door slid open and we all looked up to see Red and Grek sprinting into the room looking slightly haggard. "We're free!"

"Unfortunately for the rest of us," Jek muttered as they flopped down into the open spaces at our table. "Hey, Cap, did you hear about the new squad we just got in? Three straight from Kamino. Fox is saying he wants you to maybe take a few of them on with you and Breaker for some patrols. Break 'em in a little." 

Grek and Red began furiously chuckling beside me at the prospect of taking in Shinies, and Tor smacked both of them as I shifted a bit and lowered my holopad. "I wouldn't mind training a few of them... so long as our illustrious Marshal Commander is alright with them being a little more inclined to copious amounts of explosions."

"Eh, they'll be fine."

It was about that time that Thire came in looking rather serious, making his way very to our table and leaning forward on one of the open chairs when he got there. "Fox got a call. You'll never guess from who."