The Dad Batch

Replacements

The girl started to stir. It has been so long since getting to sleep on any sort of bed. Slowly opening her eyes, she saw the butt of her dagger. Her body was sore from being bunched up. She sat up on the cot and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands. That's when she realized her backpack was missing. She started looking around panicking.

"It's on the floor." Hunter said, walking up to her. Tackle box in hand. She looked over the edge of the cot. Worry clearly written all over her face, but her bag sat on the ground. It looked untouched. "You accidently pushed it off while you were asleep." Hunter stated as he sat on the cot across from her. "You were clear in your instructions not to touch it. So we left it on the ground."

She placed her dagger down and grabbed one of the straps, pulling it back onto the bed. She moved to sit crisscrossed and held the bag in her lap.

"So what are we supposed to call you besides kid?" Hunter asked. The girl eyes him cautiously. He sighed. "You don't trust easy." He waited, still nothing. "Hungry?" To the untrained eye, the girl would've looked like she remained unmoving, but Hunter saw her head tilt ever so slightly. Clearly she was still hungry. "Here." He opened the tackle box and she leaned over, carefully studying her options. She picked up a flat ration.

Wrecker climbed down from the gunner's mount and Hunter stood up. "Ah, finally!" He exclaimed. Hunter handed Wrecker his ration, who ate it very enthusiastically. She watched the two of them, waiting on eating her ration. "Hit me again!"

Hunter closed the tackle box. "Well, that's all for now. Rations are low." Wrecker groaned.

Rations are low? The girl thought. She cleared her throat. "You can have mine. I don't want to eat all your food supply if it's low" She offered the ration to Wrecker.

A smile grew across Wrecker's face but before he could wrap his hand around it, Hunter pushed him back away from the girl.

"Who knows when the last meal she had was and now you want to take that away from her?" Hunter was snippy with his brother.

She tilted her head at the minor argument from them. She also didn't want to be a bother to them either.

Wrecker looked at the girl, who was looking at them. "Oh, uh..." He looked past Hunter. "No, no, thanks. You keep it."

"Are you sure?" She asked. "I don't want to be a nuisance to you all."

The two of them looked at the girl, feeling even more bad that she thinks she's a nuisance. "It's okay." Wrecker said. "You aren't being a nuisance at all. I need to watch myself anyway, don't wanna let myself go."

The girl nodded. "Okay, thank you." She carefully unwrapped the wrapper and took a small bite. Hunter looked back at Wrecker.

"I guess I'm not used to having a kid around here." Wrecker said.

"Well, none of us are." Hunter said. "Even for a well-mannered stowaway, she's not complaining." The lights on the ship flickered and even the kid looked up.

"Is your ship alright?" She asked.

"Excellent question kid." Hunter said. "Echo, lights cut out again. I thought you fixed it?" He called out.

Echo walked through the bridge, eating a ration nonchalantly. "Yea, add it to the list."

Hunter shook his head. She could hear the two boys up front bickering with one another, but she looked around the ship anxiously. Hunter turned to her as she gripped the edge of the cot.

"You okay-" He started but was cut off right as the ship shook violently and was thrown out of hyperspace. Wrecker and Hunter losing their balance. The ship heading towards a moon. Hunter ran towards the bridge. Even the girl stood up, slinging her backpack over her shoulder and moving closer to hear them. "Getting thrown out of hyperspace. I'd say that's pretty critical, Tech."