Work Text:
Comet pulls the strings to increase the warmth inside his cold gear and watches out the corner of his eye as Boost does the same before he pulls his viewfinder back up to his helmet. The wind had kicked up just now after what had been an almost decent four-hour scouting mission on a sub-zero planet. The winds are hardly strong enough to be dangerous – in fact, they were what the general had instructed them to count on taking place, but all the same, the flecks of snow carried by the winds that stick to Comet’s snow gear made it just a little colder.
“Down!” Boost’s voice cuts through the quiet howling of the wind, and Comet immediately throws himself to the ground, feeling himself sink into the deep layer of snow he had been previously perched on. He tilts his head and helmet back just a little and is able to make out one of the sep’s new scouting clankers. The thing is a weird flat, round shape with wimpy metal legs descending. It is also not subtle, Comet notes, as the bright white light it uses to guide its camera reflects on every flake of snow, letting Comet know exactly when the clanker had moved on to another location. He waits for another five breaths after the light moves to climb back to a kneeling position, and he can hear the snow crunch as Boost does the same.
Now Comet lifts his viewfinder back up to his helmet and refocuses it on the canyon their perch overlooks. The seps had accidentally given themselves away with that scouting droid – there was no reason to clear the cliffs around this valley unless their plan is to move the prisoners through it. There were far too many nearby valleys to justify clearing this relatively small one otherwise. Comet fiddles with the dial on the side of his viewfinder, and grins beneath his helmet as it focuses, and the sight of a continent of b1 clankers comes into view. The metal monstrosities tower over their much smaller prisoners, but Comet can make out the footprints the prisoners leave in the snow.
“I count four sets of footprints,” Comet whispers to Boost as his vod triggers the signal to the other scouting parties that they have eyes on today’s shipment of prisoners.
“Four?” Boost hisses back. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure!”
“Every other day a shipment has been three!"
“Well, today there’s four!” Comet retorts, and Boost makes a humming noise.
“We’ll just have to do an extended pass. Take out the clankers on the way over and grab the prisoners on the ground.” Boost announces, which sounds like a bad plan, and Comet says as much. Boost snorts, then holds up battlesign ready, and the retort dies on Comet’s tongue as he double-checks the repelling gear is steadily braced in the ice. He battlesigns set back at Boost, and they both brace for the jump. As soon as the clankers and the prisoners reach a point dead ahead of them, Comet and Boost make eye contact through their helmets, and jump off the cliff, drawing their weapons as they did.
In a move that has become well-practiced during the past three weeks of repeating it over and over again, Comet and Boost fire off five shots each, taking down the ten clankers that escorted the prisoners as they swing over the top of the narrow canyon. When they reach the other side, they drive the spikes they have into the far side of the cliff and wrap the cord around them in a slip knot, and slowly run the rope through it until they reach the ground.
Once they have boots on the ground, Comet and Boost disconnect themselves from the cords and leave them hanging by the wall of the cliff. Comet immediately heads over to the prisoners, even as he hears Boost stop to crack his hotwire so that he can cut the chain that is tying the four of them together. As Comet approaches the prisoners, all four of them begin to make loud honking sounds with their long black and orange beaks and flapping their useless floppy wings up and now. Silently, Comet wonders for not the first time at whatever freak of evolution created flightless birds.
Comet looks over them quickly. There are two of the larger ones with white stomachs set against otherwise black fur, and large webbed black feet. Comet has come to recognize those as adults. Boost gets right to work cutting them free with his hotwire, and Comet ignites his own to help. Because the seps simply wrapped the chain around the bird’s torso (are they birds? Comet cannot, for the life of him, remember what the name of the species is. Peng- something or other. He’ll call them birds until he remembers.) As the chain falls from around the adult’s torso, Comet turns his attention to the other two. They are two of the smaller, fluffier grey ones that Comet recognizes as the young.
With a snap, the chain falls away from the last of the young birds, freeing all four of them completely and falling into the snow with a satisfying hiss. Immediately, the two adults cluster around one of the two young but totally ignore the other. Unbidden, Comet remembered that the seps had been transporting them in family groups because any one of them was totally insufferable when taken from its family group and that a family group was always three because the birds could only lay one egg per season.
The wind howls through the canyon, and the lone youngling curls in on itself, clearly cold. Acting on some instinct that Comet will deny later, he reaches forward and scoops it up into his arms, shielding it from the wind. The other three birds make no noises of protest, meaning that they really don’t consider this guy part of their family group.
“Well that’s their loss, isn’t it, Blizzard.” Comet comes up with a name on the spot as he ruffles the little bird’s fur, and it seems to lean into his hand, so he instead of pulling away he lets his hand stay there. Blizzard makes a happy sound. As Comet watches, all three of the other penguins (yes, that’s the word!) drop onto their stomachs and shoot away across the ice, but when Comet tries to set Blizzard down so he can follow, Blizzard grabs his glove with his beak and hangs on for dear life. Boost snorts as he watches.
“Honestly, you’re as bad a the general.” Boost gestures to Blizzard as he comments snidely. “You’ve picked up a stray.” Comet makes a noise of fake offense, which Blizzard copies to the best of his ability.
“Don’t talk about Blizzard that way!” Comet teases, and then sets off with Blizzard in his arms towards were the Wolfpack has set up their base on this planet.
“Hey, wait! Come grab your gear!” Boost calls, and Comet cackles.
“Should have thought of that before you insulted Blizzard!” Comet calls, breaking into a light jog over the snow. (This is really revenge for three days ago when Boost left Comet with all the gear.)
That evening, back at base camp, as Comet is sharing rations with Blizzard (is that good for the penguin? So far Comet has no protests and none of the medics had any idea), General Koon pokes his way into Comet’s tent.
“Ah hello there.” General Koon says, his mask twitching with amusement. “I had heard we had a new youngling in our camp.” Comet flushes, and wishes he hadn’t taken off his helmet as soon as he reached the heated tent, but the general only laughs. Laughs, and then pauses for a moment, turning to look at Blizzard oddly. “Comet, are you aware that your small penguin friend is force sensitive?”
Comet chokes on his bite for a moment.
“No. What?” General Koon’s face twitches and he makes his laughter sound. “Also, he says while he likes your nickname, his name is Robert.”
Above: the photo that inspired this piece.