In Command (#1 Post-Order 66 Series)

In Command - Part 1

"And you're uptight," she muttered into her cup, tipping the last of the contents into her mouth and wiping her lips with the back of her hand. Somehow, she already had grease on her wrist, and it smudged across her face.

Rex ignored the comment, bracing himself mentally for the first sip. He could hardly complain since she'd woken up before him. In fact, taking a closer glance at her, he noticed the bags under her eyes and the droop in her shoulders. Her posture had always been terrible, but it seemed extra slouchy today. Perhaps she hadn't even gone to sleep last night.

She interrupted his observations as she reached across him to pour herself another cup. "So what's the plan today then? Do we get to leave the compound?"

Her eagerness to step into danger read as naivete to Rex, and it annoyed him. How he'd gotten paired off with her for this was beyond him, but he'd been assured that their skillsets were the perfect complement for this particular venture. He had to admit that her methods were unconventional, but successful, at least so far. He once again wished there had been more in her file to reveal her background and where she'd gotten her technical prowess, but it had been almost empty. It mentioned her engineering coursework she'd completed on Naboo, her estimated birthdate, and a few other facts and tidbits that weren't particularly relevant to the work they were doing, but other than that, her background was a mystery, and that concerned him further.

Abandoning his misgivings, he turned to her. "Not you. I'll do some recon work in the area, but you need to stay on the waves here. We have to establish a baseline of what imperials are stationed here, and who's responsible for what before we can start having any interactions that are worthwhile."

She dumped another few scoops of sugar into her cup, sighing dramatically. "Fine, but at some point, we should probably go out together at least once. We are supposed to be a newlywed couple and what not. Otherwise people are going to think you murdered me and buried me in the back yard."

"The thought has crossed my mind," he muttered under his breath.

"I heard that," she said, shoving past him. "Fine. If you need me, I'll be in my hole."

He listened to her tromp up the stairs, her boots falling louder than they feasibly should for a person her size. Turning his attention back out the window, he watched the dust swirl in the early morning winds as he took a sip of the caf. The bitterness overwhelmed him, and his eyes watered as he grimaced, but he did manage to choke down the mouthful. He couldn't say he wasn't awake now. He took a look at the remaining caf in the cup, and with a deep sigh, stepped out the back door and dumped it on the plant closest to him. It had started to wither after just the first week they'd been here, presumably because it was his regular disposal spot for the caf he couldn't tolerate, and he had to hide his smile every time she made a comment about how she couldn't figure out why it was dying. "Sorry" he whispered to the plant before stepping back inside and shutting the door behind him.

Senna stepped into her "office". In reality, it was an extra bedroom in the dwelling that she'd converted into her command center. Spare parts of hardware that she'd found were strewn around the room in various states of repair, and she carefully picked her way to the desk tucked into one corner. Pushing some loose wire and her soldering tool aside, she settled her mug of caf within reach and slipped the headphones over her ears and punched on the holo computer's power. The hum of the system booting up gave her a warm feeling in her stomach, and she grinned. "Good morning baby. Ready for another fun day of foiling the Empire?" she asked quietly.

She tuned into the comm transmission frequencies she had identified as the ones most frequently used by the Empire, opened a notes application, and after masking her location, logged into the Imperial database using the false credentials she'd been given prior to the mission. Tapping a few keys, the audio crackled into her earphones, and she leaned back in her chair, taking another swig of her caf. She smiled as the first voices came in clear. She'd been up the entire night tweaking the modulator to try and increase the audio's clarity, and it appeared her hours of cursing and the two electric shocks she'd experienced hadn't been in vain.