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He couldn’t believe his eyes. He blinked a few times, but it was still there when he opened his eyes again.
“So … that’s what you’ve been working on for the past weeks.”
Tech nodded. He was covered in grime and probably hadn’t slept enough by how tired he looked. But there was also a satisfied smile on his face.
“She’s not perfect yet but she is in working condition. Of course it will take time to upgrade her and I wasn’t able to get all the parts I wanted, especially the hyperdrive is not ideal yet, I will have to work with it and-”
Crosshair let his gaze wander over the ship while Tech went into detail about his upgrades. It was uncanny. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that this was the original. Even the -
“Tech, did you put the scratches in the same place?” he interrupted. Tech snapped his mouth shut.
“Well, I did want her to be as close to the original as possible.”
Crosshair snorted at that. “You managed.”
He gave their new ship - the Marauder II, and apparently a very close replica to the first one - another once over, before turning back to his brother.
“So, where are we taking her for her first flight?”
Tech adjusted his goggles. “I already picked the perfect destination.” Crosshair had to grin. Of course he did.
“Alright, I’ll pack my bags. Let me guess, you want to leave as soon as possible?” Tech looked like he needed some sleep, but he was also positively vibrating with excitement and he nodded.
“She is all fueled up and ready to go whenever you are!”
“I’ll go get our stuff.” Crosshair hesitated for a second. “But only if you take a nap.”
Tech scoffed. “I don’t need a nap, I need to calibrate the hyperdrive and then check the coordinates and-” Tech squeaked when Crosshair picked him up to drag him back to their house.
“Change of plans. You take a shower and a nap and I’ll pack our bags and only then we can go. Minimum an hour of sleep. Got it?”
“That is completely unnecessary, I only need a caf and to keep working-”
“Shut up,” Crosshair grinned and shook him a little. “Stars, you're heavy. We’re you always that heavy?”
“Oh! I got some more pouches so I didn’t have to keep searching for my tools.”
“Of course you did,” Crosshair groaned, putting Tech down again but grabbed his hand so he couldn’t escape. He dragged him along, through the streets of Pabu, to their house, still under great protest. But Crosshair was good at ignoring people bitching at him - if he wanted too. And he knew Tech, knew him well enough that he would fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
Crosshair, of course, was right, and he quietly packed their bags while Tech slept, not wanting to wake him. He was debating on joining him, too. Force him to sleep some more hours. They didn’t have places to be anymore or schedules to stick to, they could take their time. It was something they still had to learn. Old habits were hard to break.
The decision was taken from Crosshair by the fact that Wrecker came home, loudly letting the door close. Crosshair sighed and poked his head through their bedroom door to find Tech awake, obviously.
“Thank you, Wrecker!” he yelled through the house, glaring at Tech who was already on his feet.
Wrecker trudged up the stairs. “Uh, for what?” He looked at Crosshair and then the bags in the hallway.
“You woke Tech,” Crosshair grumbled.
“Oh. Sorry, Tech!”
“No need to apologize. I have napped enough-”
“I disagree-”
“And I think we should get going!”
“Where to?” Wrecker asked curiously.
“I fixed up our new ship, we’re taking her out for a test drive.”
“Ooh, sounds fun! Can I come?”
Tech tilted his head but then nodded at Wrecker who cheered and promptly darted to his room to pack his bag, returning only a few minutes later.
Crosshair sighed softly. He had hoped for some time with Tech alone, just because he enjoyed it. And there was always someone tagging along these days. But then again, Hunter and Omega were gone right now, on a treasure hunt with Phee or whatever - Tech only hadn’t tagged along because he was working on the ship. And they couldn’t leave Wrecker all alone, could they?
“I’m ready!” Wrecker interrupted his thoughts by punching Crosshair in the shoulder. He couldn’t help the amused snort, then threw Wrecker their bags too.
“At least make yourself useful.”
Wrecker complained but only for show; he did carry their bags all the way to the Marauder II.
“Whoa, she looks just like the old one!” Wrecker stopped in awe.
“I did my best,” Tech said, already busy with something again. “Of course it’s not perfect but-”
“Seems pretty perfect to me.”
Crosshair scoffed, for show. “You know him. He will never be completely happy with it.”
“Because there will always be something to improve,” Tech gave back a bit snippish, before vanishing into the ship. Crosshair shook his head and followed him.
“Next time you can get me when you are finished,” Crosshair complained, leaning over Tech’s shoulder. He and Wrecker had been playing a card game for the past three hours, while Tech worked, but they had grown bored.
“I did not expect most of these issues.” Tech sounded annoyed. Crosshair decided it was better not to keep poking him about it then. Instead, he stretched himself out on the copilot chair, watching Tech set up the hyperspace jump.
Wrecker wandered in only a few minutes later, looking over his shoulder too.
“What?” Tech asked, more of a growl.
“Uhm.” Wrecker shot a glance to Crosshair, who only shrugged.
“The nap made him grumpy.”
“I am not grumpy.” Tech sounded clipped. That was definitely the consequence of too little sleep and too much work. Crosshair was already scheming how to get Tech to get some proper sleep, and preferably soon.
But for now they had to wait until they were in hyperspace.
When Tech finally started up the engines, Crosshair couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t sound exactly like the Marauder, but it was close enough, closer than any other ships they had had for now. Yes, plural, Tech had never been satisfied with them, kept trading them around.
“Ha, she sounds great!” Wrecker grinned, slapping a hand on Tech's shoulder.
Tech didn’t comment, but some of the tension had drained from his posture.
The jump to hyperspace went without a hitch too.
“So, how long is it gonna take?” Crosshair drawled, which made Tech glare at him again.
“Don’t start that.”
Crosshair raised his hands. “‘M not trying to start anything, only curious.”
Tech huffed. “Approximately 11 hours.”
“Perfect.” Crosshair grinned. “Wrecker, help me.”
“With what-” Tech squawked as he got picked up. “Not again!”
“You need some sleep,” Crosshair chuckled, shoving the two towards their bunks. “And Wrecker will make sure you get it.”
“Yeah!” Wrecker whooped, ignoring Tech struggling in his grasp.
“What if something breaks-” Tech protested, trying to get free.
Crosshair waved his datapad in his face. “I know you set up all the sensors and this thing will alert us, and you can’t tell me that you didn’t and it won’t.”
Finally, Tech didn’t know what to say and Crosshair smirked, before yelping when Wrecker pulled him down too, effectively trapping both of them.
“That was not the plan,” he hissed, but Wrecker only chuckled and hugged both of them close.
They woke up from the ship alerting them they would drop out of hyperspace soon - something where they should, ideally, have a pilot at the ready.
Tech mumbled sleepy complaints about having slept too long while fighting to get out of Wrecker’s embrace.
They made it into the cockpit in time, and nothing happened. Tech was still glaring at them though.
“Next time, you should set an alarm,” he grumbled.
“Hey, hey, if you sleep for 11 hours you needed it,” Crosshair gave back, totally ignoring the fact that he, too, had slept for that long, then gasped when Tech stuck his tongue out at him.
“Hey don’t we know that planet?” Wrecker asked, distracting them from their squabble.
“We have been to many planets during the clone wars. And after,” Tech simply answered, which made Crosshair suspicious and turn his attention towards it. He tried to remember, because, yeah, it was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. After so many planets, it wasn’t easy.
He didn’t miss the way Tech smirked tho.
The landing was easy enough. They were in a forest clearing. Forests were everywhere throughout the galaxy, and Crosshair hadn’t seen anything that gave him a hint from the aerial view.
“Okay, you chose that planet, specifically, because of something,” he said once they stepped outside. “Why?”
Tech only kept his knowing smirk. “You’ll see. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Wrecker cried. “That’s unfair!”
And Crosshair had to agree.
“It’s a boring forest,” he tried to argue, but Tech shrugged him off, looking around.
“Not boring.”
“If you say so,” he huffed.
They followed Tech around for a bit while he took pictures of plants and whatever. The planet obviously hadn’t been spared from the Empire, but it looked less bad than some other planets. The forest here was mostly intact, flora and fauna kinda thriving.
A sound made him stop. It was far away, almost too quiet to hear, and still sounded … familiar.
Tech had heard it too, because he headed into the direction, looking around attentively.
When it sounded through the forest again, Crosshair had to grin. It was a loud rattle, definitely familiar now. Wrecker had picked up on it too.
It didn’t take long to find the source of the sound. They stood under the tree, looking at the magpie.
“That’s not Cheese.” Crosshair tried to not sound disappointed.
“It’s a juvenile,” Tech said. The magpie squawked loudly as if to complain and flew away.
“Aww,” Wrecker said, watching the bird leave. “You think we will find Cheese too?”
“I wouldn’t count on it. It’s been several years, we do not know if something happened.”
Crosshair scoffed and picked up the pace after the magpie. “That’s optimistic.”
With quick steps, Tech followed, likely so they wouldn’t get separated.
“I did want to confirm on my own but never got the chance.”
Crosshair ignored him, aimlessly following animal paths through the thickets when he lost sight of the bird. He wasn’t looking for anything specific. Tech surely had brought them in the vicinity of where Cheese had been last, but as he said, it had been years, and clearly the Empire had been here, even if they didn’t have an active presence here anymore. And the forest was big. It was unlikely they would find a single bird here and - a glint of something caught his eye and Crosshair stopped, almost getting run over by Wrecker.
“Hey, warn me next time!”
Crosshair ignored him, making his way towards the glint. It was up high in a tree, and Crosshair squinted against the sun ray filtering through the canopy.
Tech and Wrecker stopped beside him.
“What is it?”
Crosshair didn’t answer. Instead, he started climbing the tree.
“Cross, what are you doing?” Tech asked. “Be careful!”
“Yeah, yeah.” It was obvious he was only half listening to his brother, his focus solely on the glinting thing because if he was right- yeah, he was. He also immediately regretted it, when he was - viciously - attacked by a bird trying to protect its nest.
“Hey you stupid thing, get away!” He tried to shield his face with one arm, almost losing balance.
“Cross!” The worry was obvious in Tech’s voice.
“I’ll catch him if he falls,” Wrecker offered. He sounded almost as anxious though.
Suddenly, the squawking and attacks stopped and Crosshair huffed, getting both of his hands on a branch again to not fall down. Wrecker’s offer was nice, but he also didn’t want to try it out.
Gingerly, he looked at the bird who sat in front of its treasure, all floofed up to appear bigger. It was curiously watching Crosshair, then let out a tiny rattle and hopped closer.
“You idiot stole one of my mirror pucks while I was unconscious?” Crosshair laughed, stretching out his hand to pet Cheese who started to make happy noises.
“Are you okay?” Wrecker called up. Right, he was up here pretty high, they probably couldn’t recognize the bird.
“Let’s get down,” he told her, starting to climb down. Cheese obviously was faster than him, gliding down and landing on Wrecker’s shoulder. She started squawking and rattling excitedly.
“Oh, hey!” Wrecker started scratching her, a big smile on his face.
Crosshair hopped down the last meter, watching them. He couldn’t help but grin, excited about seeing their friend again.
Cheese started hopping around between them, rattling and squawking happily and then trying to dig into one of Tech’s pouches until he produced a handful of berries she happily ate out of their hands. Well, until she froze and then flew away.
“Hey, where are you going?” Wrecker asked and pouted.
“She is a wild bird,” Tech tried to rationalize.
“Aww,” Wrecker said, disappointment in his voice. “I really hoped she would stick around longer.”
“We have food, after all,” Crosshair added.
A soft squawk drew their attention, and another magpie landed just above them. It looked like the juvenile they had seen before. Before anyone could say anything, Cheese landed beside it, followed by two others.
“Oh. Those are all juveniles.” Tech blinked at them, then dropped some more berries which they happily started to accept. “They must be her chicks.”
“Cheese has babies?” Wrecker grinned and sat down, holding out a hand to them. “This day is getting better and better.”
Crosshair had to agree.
They ended up staying on that planet for a few days, until Tech had collected enough plants and data and was getting bored. Crosshair didn't mind so much. It was serene. And Cheese and her chicks kept them entertained. They had ended up naming them Berry, Cake and Ration, for obvious reasons.
Though, in the end, he was glad that Wrecker had tagged along - he would have been bored out of his mind without him. Tech might find plants fascinating, but he didn’t.
Only leaving them behind - again - was very hard.
“I promise we can return,” Tech said while trying to get both of them to get on his ship. “But we promised Omega we would be back for the whale migration.”
Tech was right of course, didn't mean Cross had to like it.
“I’m just gonna say goodbye,” he told him, darting towards Cheese again.
“Yeah uh, me too,” Wrecker said, following Crosshair.
“You better be on the ship in five minutes or I’ll leave you!” Tech huffed and they knew he was serious.
“Wrecker. Why. Is your backpack moving?” Crosshair asked, very slowly.
“... No reason.”
Crosshair snatched it out of his hands, opening the flap. A juvenile magpie squawked at him. And another. And another.
“Wrecker, I told you to leave them!” Tech glared at his brother. “If Cross can take Cheese I can take them!”
Tech slowly turned his head towards Crosshair who bristled. “You what?”
“She was sad!” He tried to push his own backpack under a seat in an attempt to hide it moving too.
They both oofed when the Marauder dropped out of hyperspace, almost sending them flying through the cockpit..
“In retrospect this was a bad idea,” Tech muttered to himself, changing the course back to the planet they had just come from.