Star Wars: Side Missions

Our Secret

From the crew lounge couch, Kian snored. Downtime meant most of the crew was spread across the Calamity. Dros and Zur were caught in another sparring match. Rho had decided to join them, so Myren sat at the lounge table watching after Nadjye.

Kanor had whisked Esho off to train. The girl was going to be exhausted . Perhaps that was a good thing. Esho could be a handful, specifically when left alone with Michael, or Kian. And they all needed to keep on their toes. There was a war waiting outside these walls. Even in downtime, readiness was imperative.

Myren herself had work, too. With Rho out training, Myren was tasked with keeping a half eye on Nadjye. The seven year old was sprawled on the floor, engrossed in her drawing. Myren had ensured the little dathomiri girl got a new stack of papers from time to time. Drawing on the walls would not go over well. Not after last time.

Kian shifted, still asleep–he'd been up since 5am doing his own paperwork. The paperwork Myren was now quietly completing regarding the reports from their last mission. It would get done faster this way.

Myren glanced back up to find Kian had laid down, his head tucked into one of his arms. Nadjye also looked up, alerted the movement, and turned around. Papers spread around her with drawings of what could likely be described as herself, likely her mother, and Myren was certain she caught a few other depictions of Winterfang members among them. The effort was admirable. Stickers adorned the corners of many drawings.

Nadjye looked back at her coloring after a moment. Myren too looked back at her work. She leaned back and sighed before abandoning the chair in favor of walking over to the couch. She settled down next to Kian and propped one leg on the other.

Absently, she put her hand on Kian's shoulder and felt the way he breathed evenly. It had been a rough week. They all needed a well deserved break. But war waited for no man. Terrorists didn't either.

Kian mumbled something in his sleep. Myren went back to work. Being the analyst meant a lot of paperwork. Thrawn taught her well to notice the details. It was the details that could decide the tide of war in the end after all. Kian did not have the eye for details on paper but she'd seen him in the field.

He never would've made it this far if he didn't have an eye for detail somewhere. Soldiers and analysts. Some could say they sat in opposition. One the quiet calculating mind and the other a brute wall of muscle.

They'd be wrong. It took as many guts to stand in the face of the horrifying details as it did to stand among them and calculate the next course of action.

Myren caught the movement of Nadjye out of the corner of her eye. The little girl had stalked up to the couch, prowling quietly as a Nexu, and was caught in calculating her next movement. A clear plan was set in her eyes. She peeled a sticker off the paper she had been given by Rho and squinted. She pasted the selected sticker with delicacy on the back of Kian's armor and smiled.

She had no concept of the war that raged outside. Myren knew that Nadjye understood, though, when her mother left for days on end. Nadjye worried.

Myren herself worried, often. Would they come back?

She watched Nadjye plant another sticker on Kian's backplate and begin peeling off the next. He barely moved, snoring a bit louder now that he was on his side.

Nadjye plastered a third sticker, this one of a bright pink star. Her eyes glittered in innocence as she admired her handiwork. Myren smiled to herself. The light in Nadjye's eyes was infectious. Myren hoped it would never fade.

Nadjye finally caught Myren looking, though, and her eyes widened.

Myren simply placed a finger to her lips and smirked. Nadjye's grin widened until all her sharp teeth were visible in the most childish ecstasy possible. And Kian went on sleeping. Myren looked down at her datapad and set it aside. She laid her hand back on Kian's shoulder as Nadjye went right on putting stickers on his backplate, braver than ever before.

The war could wait a few hours. This little moment was important. Nadjye stole glances up, and Myren just let her keep right at it, decorating Kian's whole backplate in a splash of colored stickers. He'd never even notice. Myren almost laughed.

This would be their secret.