Chapter Text
There wasn’t much he could do. Certainly nothing he could say, if he even got the opportunity. If the cadet would even listen.
Wouldn’t, probably.
Might not even read the notes he’s scratched out on flimsi. Shouldn’t, definitely.
It’ll look like a trap. Trainer still there, still with him. He can get it there another way. He’s smarter than that, or he’s lucky.
No, not lucky.
Still might look like a trick. Maybe the kind from a brother who wants him to fail.
He didn’t want that. He just wasn’t sure he could help.
The other choice was to do nothing. He could do nothing. Why would he even know the tat’ka’s trip was planned, even think he ought to do something about it?
A hand waves at the edge of his vision, and it jerks him from his indecision.
Ready? The handsign asks.
Ready . He flashes back. He folds the flimsi up, but not too small to look interesting, and he and the squad he’s been staying with nod like they are on his mission together.
“We have two days with nothing to do, and this is your plan? Should we take a holo of the pretty trees and wear flower crowns?” Ransom hadn’t stopped talking since they’d left the bunk.
That was what he did when he was bored. Talk, until someone tried to shut him up. Then he fought. Steady didn’t care about the talk since they weren’t looking for anything that would spook at the noise.
He had no idea what a flower crown was, or how Ransom knew.
Sometimes Ransom switched to their version of Mando’a, just to make sure Steady didn’t understand him. That was even easier to not listen to.
The other brothers were different in ways he would never understand.
They had been walking for an hour at most, and nothing close to a challenging pace or difficult terrain. Most of the trek had even been shaded, cool in the late spring weather. The day was warm where the sunshine poked through, little splashes of light and heat.
“Fuck it. This is stupid. I’m going back.”
Steady kept walking. He wasn’t sure if Ransom really would go back, and maybe he wouldn’t mind testing that.
Instead, Jolly was the first one to speak up. “And do what? Play limmie with the CTs? Go watch the vod’ikase learn to swim?”
“You’ve been playing limmie with your little CT friend so don’t even–”
“Here.” Steady spoke, and they both stopped bickering. The clearing didn’t look like anything special, not much different than the other half-dozen they’d passed.
The three of them were silent for a long moment, but Steady didn’t mind. Of course they didn’t know what they were looking at.
He knew. He’d known since his first trip on-world.
Steady moved carefully through the grass and the others stood unsure at the edge of the woods. He held up a hand, halting them before they could step on anything without thinking. Carefully, he plucked a handful, and carried them back over.
“Tal kar'ta,” he explained as he held out his hand. Four little berries, each a lumpy rounded shape and no bigger than a thumbnail, were cradled in his hand. The thick red of their juice was already staining his finger tips, but Steady knew they were only ripe a few weeks a year. He could still recall the note that had stuck out just far enough from the back panel of the datapad and how very specific it had been on where he could find them.
“What do we do with do with them?” Wink cocked his head to the side, and Steady shifted his hand closer for him to get a better look.
“Eat them.”
“You can’t just pick up some random plant, vod.” Ransom gestured to Steady’s stained palm. “We might have been built resistant to all sorts of shit, you can’t just grab something and–”
And Jolly ate one. “Oh, shit. Vod.”
“Are you okay?” Wink asked with a shocked sort of concern. “Do you need to sit down?”
Steady only just barely managed to bite back his smile.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” Jolly’s mouth was stained by the juice when he smiled.
Steady couldn’t help himself. “Better than pudding?”
Jolly grinned, bright and sharp. “Tied.”
“What’s it taste like?” Wink looked from the berries still in Steady’s hand back to Jolly.
“Sweet like pudding. Maybe sweeter. But juicy. A little sour.” Jolly shook his head before taking another one. “So good. Try it for yourself.”
Wink stole one look at Ransom, and Steady watched him clock the scowl.
He took the next berry anyway, and there’s the most gratifying shift on his face as his eyes widened in surprise as he chewed before he beamed up at Ransom. “You have to try one.”
Steady knew Ransom would, because Ransom never denied Wink anything. And Wink would follow him to the end of the Galaxy. Whatever it was between them, no one had explained it to Steady, he was glad they had it.
To spare him, Steady took the next one. He surprised himself. The flavor was more than he remembered, so intense it bordered on too much. Sweet and bright, and better than anything else he knew. He’d practically dreamed of them after he’d tried them the first time.
“Are there more?” Jolly asked, before Ransom was even done chewing.
Steady nodded glancing back over his shoulder. “A field of them.”
All three looked at him in disbelief.
“They grow here. Native.” He remembered belatedly, and he refused to glance at Jolly to see if he noticed the slip. “On hillsides in the spring. Follow the birds to find them.”
That had been the instructions he’d been given in the note, with a small sketch of the shape of the leaves and berries, that they grew on vines that sometimes twined up trees on sunny exposures.
It had been enough to fill his belly when he’d been solo on survival training, without rations as the mission objective had required.
To learn from the experience of others was what a smart Commander did.
To reject that knowledge was to be arrogant. Self–satisfied.
Still, his secret intel had weighed on him. It felt like a gift unearned, like something he would answer for later.
“So you knew these were here?” Wink looked past Steady, taking in the field, the gentle drone of flying insects. “Knew that we could have them all?”
“To share,” Steady corrected. There were enough berries in the field for the cadets, enough on similar patches for everyone to have. It was only a matter of finding the fields at the right time, so the berries would be ripe. “To share them is – tradition.”
In a way, that was how he'd come by them too.
That pause definitely earned him a look from Jolly.
“You can bring some back for your little CT buddy.” Ransom snickered at Jolly and the two were moments from yet another wrestling match. If Wink, a little CT himself, had anything to say in response, it was lost to carefully sorting through the foliage, looking for more berries.
“These.” Steady pointed to a pointed to wide leaves with a neatly-frilled edge. He lifted the leaves with the back of his hand to show a cluster of the berries in varying degrees of redness. “Only the red ones are sweet.”
Wink reached for the reddest one, only to have to pop between his fingers. That earned a surprised laugh. “Explosive.”
Steady plucked another one by the short green stem.
“Guess we better get started.” Jolly clapped his hands. “Lots of brothers to share with.”
*
“Bacara?” Rex called from the door. “Expecting any mysterious, bloody deliveries?”
Could never tell with the Marines. Bacara eased himself from the chair to join Rex, looking at the careful cloth wrapping tied in a precise water knot, and the red stains seeping through the edges.
The whole bundle fit in his two palms, and he gently eased the knot open. If it was a gift from one of his, they’d find somewhere to watch, gauge his reaction. Baraca wouldn’t scan the treeline. They didn’t want to be seen.
As the corners came loose, a few tiny red rounds tumbled out. Bacara caught them before they could fall to the ground, and he examined them.
“Berries?” Rex peered at the loose few in his palm. “Have you had them before? Should I get the field guide?”
“I have had them. Tal kar’ta,” Bacara said, as the memories caught him. “Native plants. They are prized. Given to–”
“Given to?” Rex was already grinning, the kind of smile caught between fondness and amusement.
“Friends.” Bacara swallowed hard, putting one berry in his own mouth and then offering the next to Rex as he savored the taste. “Given to friends.”