by Ben Acker
“But Aygee doesn’t sleep, right? He’s not ‘just a droid,’ but he’s still a droid.”
Sari smiled. “He doesn’t sleep, of course not. He powers down, and the brothers both prefer he do it in a bunk rather than standing in a corner like the other droids. He’s got stuff. Belongings. Mementos from his home planet. Things that remind him of his childhood with Dec. He’s still a droid, yes, but he’s not just a droid. Do you see?”
Sari rose and headed for the door.
Mattis stayed on the ground and watched her head out. “Sari,” he said.
She turned and waited. He didn’t know what to say. He was moved by what she had told him, how she had told him, that she had trusted him. “See you at mess, huh?” he said, finally. She nodded, then turned back around and left.
Mattis stayed on the floor a little longer, catching his breath. He woke Klimo, and they went to get ready for dinner.
Later, Mattis made his way across the mess hall, holding his tray loaded with rations. Klimo followed him. Jo sat with some of the other squad leaders, Lorica, and the Aqualish boys. At a smaller table in a remote corner, Dec, Sari, AG, and J’mi, the slight alien girl with the mottled fur and protruding snout, laughed and ate their rations. Mattis usually sat at the end of Jo’s table. There he could show his allegiance to Jo and the Resistance command but keep well removed from actual conversation. That night, though, he crossed the mess and sat down with Dec and the others.
“You mind?” he asked before sitting.
“’Course not. You and your Rodian are always welcome,” Dec said, opening his arms. “Grab a bench. J’mi is just telling us about life back on Regor-Mada.”
As he sat, Mattis said quietly, “Sari told me what you did for Aygee. That’s…good of you.”
Dec waved away Mattis’s praise. “We take care of each other,” Dec said, then turned back to J’mi and the others. “Tell us about that river you fell in. It makes you sound like a dope, and that makes me laugh.”
A MONTH PASSED. Mattis, Dec, AG, and Sari fell into an easy friendship, only occasionally put aside for push-ups, during which nobody liked anybody and everybody hated everything. Their friendship was only sometimes strained because of Mattis’s desire to follow Jo’s orders, and Jo had a lot of orders. Jo saw that Mattis was growing close with Dec and the others and rode Mattis harder for it. Mattis took every order, though. As much as he wanted to be friends with his gang, he wanted to do as Jo told him so that one day he would be the hero he dreamed of being.
There was tension all across the base. The mission on which the fighter pilots had left when Mattis arrived was still active. It was taking longer than anyone had anticipated. Mattis often saw Admiral Ackbar pacing around, worriedly muttering to himself. From what Mattis could piece together from overheard whispers between Jo, Lorica, and the Ganthelian girl in J-Squadron—her name was Leeson Juben—the mission leader had sent word that the fighters could return unannounced. This was unusual for a well-orchestrated undertaking. But it meant that they were still out looking for whatever it was they were looking for. The absence of so many Resistance pilots and fighters was making everyone snippy and sloppy. What conversation didn’t happen behind closed doors was terse and short-tempered.
Klimo, too, was becoming a problem. His enthusiasm for their “adventure” and “best-friendship” hadn’t waned since they arrived. Mattis couldn’t shake him. From the time Mattis woke up in the morning to the time he returned to his bunk at night, Klimo was at his heels, always underfoot despite being one step behind. He was Mattis’s green shadow. The others teased him about his “best friend.”
One night, Dec knocked gently on the door of Mattis’s room before sliding it open. On the first knock, Klimo leaped from his bunk into a squat on the floor, his hands out in front of him as if he were holding a blaster on Dec, who was already inside.
“P’kow p’kow!” Klimo imitated a blaster.
“If I was coming to blast you, I’d have blasted you before you even landed,” Dec said to Klimo, grinning.
Klimo shook his head. “No way, friend’s friend! Klimo is fast.”
“If you’re fast at all, it’s in a one-step-behind sort of way,” Dec said.
Mattis was still rubbing sleep from his eyes as Dec crossed the small room and snapped on the light.
“Wakey-wakey, Banz,” Dec said. “We’re gonna have some fun tonight.”
Mattis dropped his head back onto his pillow. “No, please.”
AG and Sari crowded into the narrow barracks and hung near the doorway.
“It’s nothing bad,” Sari said.
Mattis covered his face with his hand. Farming back on Durkteel hadn’t kept him awake as much as life on the base. “If it weren’t bad,” he said, “we wouldn’t have to do it in the middle of the night.”
“Dec is hungry,” AG reported.
Mattis rolled onto his side and raised his eyebrows at Dec. “And you can’t wait until morning?”
“I’ll starve to death if I wait till morning. You want that on your conscience?” It was no use arguing. Dec was dug in. What was the worst that could happen? They wouldn’t be kicked out for sneaking over to the mess hall and swiping a few ears of Lemus corn.
“What’s the ‘mission’?” Mattis asked.
Dec laughed again. “Easy as pie,” he said. “Hubbard pie, specifically.” Earlier that week, their dinner rations had included a pie about the size of Mattis’s palm. Every single man, woman, and alien in the Resistance mess that night had emitted a squeal of glee heard halfway across the galaxy.
“I’m in,” Mattis said.
That made everyone laugh. They’d watched for probably an hour as Mattis savored his Hubbard pie. He’d never had anything so warm and sweet.
“They gotta have more, right?” Dec said. “It’s nothing for Sari to slice into the mess. We’ll just take one apiece. Or two.”
“One,” Mattis said. He didn’t want them getting carried away.
“You comin’, greenie?” Dec asked Klimo.
Klimo jumped up and down. Of course he was going. “Let’s sneak into the mess hall!” he yelled. Mattis warned him that he’d have to keep quiet, and a moment later, they were sneaking to the mess hall. A moment after that, Klimo followed them. One step behind.
The base at night was dark and silent. A month before, there would have been activity at all hours. But with all the training and fretting over missions, when the Resistance slept, it slept hard. There were a few hours each night that all Mattis could hear was the whir and hum of sentry droids. Even the protocol droids powered down for the night.
They crept noiselessly, bunched in a group behind Dec. The only sound they heard was the light clanking of AG’s body. It sounded thunderous to Mattis, and he was sure that Admiral Ackbar would burst from his quarters and reprimand them all at any moment.
But he didn’t. What stopped them was Dec, ducking behind some transport ships. The others followed suit, unsure exactly why. It took Mattis a moment to realize that Dec was pointing to one of the main command structures. His eyes adjusted to the dim light on the building just in time to see someone scan a security card and slip inside.
“Who was that?” Mattis whispered.
“That was Jo,” Dec said.
“No way,” Mattis said.
Dec turned to the group. “One of you must’ve seen. That was Jo.”
They all looked at each other. Finally, AG nodded. “It was,” he said. “I saw him, too.” But whether it was because he saw Jo or because he would always back up his brother, nobody could discern.
It was proof enough for Klimo, who waved and started to say something, probably “Hello, Jo.” Quick as lightspeed, Dec’s hand shot up and gripped Klimo’s snout tight.
Dec held a finger to his own lips and asked with his eyes if Klimo understood to be silent. The Rodian nodded as best he could, and Dec slowly unwrapped his fingers from Klimo’s weird mouth situation.
“Why would Jo sneak aro
und?” Sari asked.
“He sure ain’t out for Hubbard pies,” Dec said. “Mess is all the way down there. That’s a communications center in there. Intragalactic. Highly restricted.”
“Jo doesn’t have clearance.” Sari looked worried.
“We gotta go in after him,” Dec said.
“Why?” asked Mattis. “There’s no way Jo, if it even was Jo, is up to anything he isn’t supposed to be.”
Dec and AG shared a look that said, Poor Mattis.
“What? What am I missing?”
“Always suspect the person you least suspect.”
“Of what? And why?”
There was every chance Dec was making it all up as he was going along, but he gave no indication. He said, “Of everything. There’s always a reason they’re trying to throw you off their scent. Number two lesson after ‘If you’re in trouble, throw the nearest large object at the problem’ is never, ever completely trust someone you can completely trust.”
“Wait, does that mean that because you can trust me…you can’t trust me?”
Dec and AG shared that poor Mattis look again.
“I can get us in,” Sari said, and started off for the communications center door, staring down the swipe-pad door lock and cracking her considerable knuckles. The others followed.
“I have a good feeling about this!” Klimo nervously whisper-yelled in Mattis’s ear.
Mattis shushed Klimo, and then Dec and AG shushed Mattis. Sari shushed them all.
She entered a code that slid the door lock’s exterior to the side and into the programming interface.
“Are you bypassing the—” AG-90 started to ask.
“Rerouting it.”
“Wow! You think you can crack the—”
“I know I can.”
“You could enter a—” AG started again.
“Yeah.” Sari cut him off. “If I had all night and a Murr rabbit’s foot.”
“Sure,” AG conceded, “but have you thought of a digital scrape that jump-jacks the main connect?”
Sari’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe that would have worked, too,” she said coolly as the door unlocked. “Didn’t need it, though.”
The door slid open to reveal a long corridor lined with rooms, all dark except the last one, which emitted a faint light. Whether it was Jo or not, someone was in there, off hours, using the intragalactic communications center.
“Sneak-race you, bro!” AG whisper-yelled as he quickly tiptoed in.
Dec frowned and said as loud as he could whisper, “AG, get back here. Sari, get that door shut again. And, greenie? No matter what you do, don’t yell—”
“Lorica!” Klimo cried. Fortunately, his shout covered the sound of the door sliding closed—with AG still on the other side of it. Lorica, wearing military pajamas, was heading their way.
“Lorica,” Sari said quietly as the other girl approached them. “What are you even doing out here?”
“Are you sleepwalking?” Mattis asked, thinking quickly. “Sometimes Klimo sleepwalks. We were just—getting him. Out of…sleepwalking.”
Klimo squeezed his round black eyes shut and stretched his arms out in front of him. “I was sleepwalking!” he said too loudly.
“Can you whisper?” Mattis asked.
“I am whispering!” Klimo cried.
“Did you guys see Jo?” Lorica asked. She showed no interest in either their lies or reasons for being out in the middle of the night.
“Jo Jerjerrod?” Mattis played dumb. Lorica fixed him with a caustic stare. “Ha-ha! Yes. I mean, yes, of course that’s who you mean. But no. We haven’t seen him.” An impatient silence hung over the group. “Dec?”
“Lor.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Mizz Demaris, pardon me,” Dec continued. “What’s your boyfriend, Jo, gonna do when he finds you out wandering the base at this hour?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Lorica told him, and turned to the security doors. She looked at the swipe pad. She didn’t have a security card any more than the rest of them did.
Mattis couldn’t help feeling a softness and sensitivity whenever Lorica was around, despite her obvious dislike of him. That was the only way he could explain what he said next. “It’s hard here.”
The others all looked at him as if he’d dropped a dead dianoga in the middle of the conversation.
“What did you say?” Lorica asked.
“Banz, take a break,” Dec said pleasantly.
But Mattis didn’t want a break. Calmness had overcome him when Lorica arrived, which was not how he ought to have felt. As was so often the case when he was in her presence, he felt his heart open up and his eyes get watery. Not from upset or ire but just from…he didn’t know what. Was it the Force, Mattis wondered? Was Lorica Force-sensitive, and was she opening his mind and heart to its ways? He trusted that was the case. So he repeated himself: “It’s hard here.”
Another odd silence.
Until Lorica said, “It is. It’s…it’s really difficult.”
The others didn’t look at her, too afraid to break whatever spell was currently over them. But Mattis did. “Sometimes I don’t think I can handle it,” he told her. “Honestly. You and Jo—you guys are so tough, so disciplined. You’re meant for this. Sometimes I don’t think I know anything but cutting hemmel. And that’s no help against the First Order.”
“I don’t always feel meant for it,” Lorica said. When she spoke, it seemed to Mattis as if she and he were the only people on the base. Maybe on the whole planet.
But then Dec spoke up, too. His voice was gentler than Mattis had ever heard it before. “Me too,” he said. “I want to do this right, y’know? I want to be as much help to the fight as I can be, but—but the ways don’t always make sense.”
Sari nodded and mumbled an agreement. “I have things to offer,” she said. “But I don’t know what’s the right way.”
Klimo slapped Mattis on the back and said, “I am glad they are all my friends. It helps me here.”
All five of them stood in a loose circle, mostly looking at the ground, but Lorica and Mattis watched each other. She wore a puzzled look, as if she were doing a really hard math problem in her head. “We can make it better for each other,” she said to the group, but she was really speaking to Mattis. Mattis wore a puzzled look, too, as if he were doing an easy math problem, but one that was still beyond him. “We can work together, I think, to make—”
She stopped speaking as the door slid open. AG bounded out, clanking his limbs against his torso in his excitement and rush to get out of the comms center. “Gang!” AG hollered. “You gotta hear—Hey!” He stopped short when he saw Lorica.
She scowled first at Mattis, then at Dec and AG. Her teeth were bared. “You keetar freg,” she seethed. Mattis didn’t know what that meant but could tell it was a nasty Zeltron epithet. She shoved Dec. He fell backward into AG, and they both rattled to the ground. “You tricked me,” she said. “You used me because you were sneaking around in there. You made me—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She started away, then turned back to face Mattis.
He gasped for air. He hadn’t used her. He wasn’t just saying those things to distract her from discovering their troublemaking. He’d really felt them, felt his heart and mind open up. He’d spoken honestly. It hurt him that she felt tricked, because he knew she’d been honest, too. But it didn’t matter. There was nothing he could say. Lorica swung a swift fist in his direction, but in the moment before it made contact, she changed her mind, opened her palm, and lowered it so she gave him a hard cuff in the chest instead, grunting as she did. The air went out of Mattis’s lungs, and he doubled over. When he looked up again, Lorica was storming off in the direction of her barracks.
Sari helped Dec and AG-90 to their feet. Klimo patted Mattis on the back. “You okay, friend?” he asked. Mattis shook his head. He wasn’t okay.
The security door slid open again. What else could possibly go wrong?
Jo Jerjerrod stepped out of the comms center and directly into their group. His face fell.
“You screwups,” he sneered. “You were spying on me.”
“Technically, only Aygee was spying on you,” Dec said unhelpfully.
Jo swiveled his head to look at the droid, and AG had to take a step back, so sharp was their squad leader’s glare.
“I didn’t—” AG started, but it didn’t matter. Jo had turned a deep red; a vein in his neck throbbed like a snake under a tarp.
Mattis was too afraid, not to mention too tired, too embarrassed, and too upset about Lorica, to do much of anything. If Dec and AG wanted to wriggle out of this one, they were on their own. And Mattis believed they’d do it. Dec always got away with everything. Jo might get mad, but there was little he could do to Dec if he wasn’t allowed to boot him from the Resistance altogether.
Or maybe Mattis was wrong. Jo grabbed AG by the arm and pulled the droid close to him. “Come with me,” he said.
“Careful, chief. That arm’s been around; it’ll come right off in your hand,” AG complained.
Jo reached into his pocket for a comlink and said, “Security droids, report to comms center four. Some recruits need an escort back to their bunks.”
“You’ll want to let go of my brother,” Dec said evenly.
“I got this, Dec,” AG said. “Jo, we need to talk about what happened in there.”
“No we do not,” Jo said. His voice was hard. His teeth were clenched.
“Take your doshin’ hands off,” Dec said with a mean smile.
Sari took a step forward to help AG. Jo warned her off with a look, but it didn’t work; she took another step. Jo was about to say something else, something certainly menacing, but the sentry droids arrived and did his talking for him. Mattis hadn’t even heard them hum up to the group. They spoke in unison: “Return to your barracks.”
“What are you doing?” Mattis asked. He choked on the words, and no one heard him. He cleared his throat and said again, “What are you doing with Aygee, Jo?”