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Relay has gotten used to life in the Guard.
Mostly.
He has gotten used to red armor, underground barracks, classified corridors, and commanders who can turn an improperly filed supply request into a criminal investigation. He has gotten used to answering to Relay instead of Dogma. He has even gotten used to Ghost appearing silently behind him and speaking only after his body has already committed to the heart attack.
The promotion is newer.
SERGEANT ARC-CT-4816 RELAY, SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION.
Ghost had placed the rank marker on his file three days ago, informed him that his performance was acceptable, and walked away before Relay could determine whether he was supposed to feel proud.
He does.
Quietly.
The problem is that Guard Headquarters is boring today.
Relay sits in Logistics with seventeen communications units arranged across the table and a requisition sheet that has personally offended him.
The Guard regularly shifts personnel between divisions when staffing becomes thin. SpecOps troopers help with patrols. Investigations officers cover Senate escorts. Riot units guard doors while everyone else deals with whatever explosion has happened that week.
Relay can't because his face tattoo is too recognizable.
The dark aurebesh leth covering most of his face tends to ruin the illusion that he is an ordinary Guard filling an ordinary post. There are only so many times civilians can see the same extremely tattooed trooper working five different divisions before they begin asking whether the Guard has discovered cloning.
Which would be an annoying question for several reasons.
He can help Logistics.
Unfortunately, Relay is bad at Logistics.
“Myth,” he calls, “why are these comm units listed under medical supplies?”
Myth doesn’t look up from the cargo manifest beside him.
“They came in with a medical shipment.”
“They aren’t medical equipment.”
“They were inside the crate.”
“The crate was mislabeled.”
“Then they’re medical comm units.”
“That’s not how classification works.”
“It is if you want to go to bed before midnight.”
Relay looks at him.
Myth finally glances up.
“Stop making that face.”
“This is my face.”
“The judgmental part.”
“That’s also my face.”
Myth sighs and returns to his manifests.
Relay picks up the next comm unit.
The 501st rarely gave him enough time to become bored.
There had always been something happening. Fives was arguing with an officer. Jesse was attempting to improve equipment nobody asked him to touch. Hardcase was discovering whether a regulation remained valid after the relevant object exploded.
Relay had found it exhausting.
At the time, he was Dogma. Fresh from Kamino, painfully eager to prove he deserved his armor, and convinced that every rule existed because someone wiser had considered every possible outcome.
The 501st had responded to this by treating him like an unusually armed hall monitor.
He knows now that they didn't hate him.
Most of them, anyway.
They simply hadn’t known what to do with a shiny who quoted regulations during illegal races through the hangar.
Relay turns the comm unit over in his hands.
The Guard knows what to do with him.
Ghost gives him rules that matter.
Fox gives orders with actual reasons behind them.
When Relay notices a breach in procedure, nobody laughs until the breach becomes a casualty report. His attention to detail is useful here.
He still misses the noise. It's a little too quiet in HQ.
A dull crash sounds beyond Logistics.
Relay looks toward the door.
Myth keeps working.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you going to check?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“This is Headquarters. If it matters, someone will start screaming.”
A second crash follows.
Then Boba Fett runs past the open doorway carrying a training remote beneath one arm.
The remote is sparking.
Ghost follows him at a calm walking pace.
“Boba,” she says.
“I fixed it.”
“You armed it.”
“It was boring.”
The remote fires a stun bolt over Boba’s shoulder.
Ghost moves her head two centimeters.
The bolt strikes the wall.
Myth continues working.
Relay sets down the comm unit.
“Should we help?”
“No.”
Another stun bolt crosses the doorway.
A Guardsman outside yelps.
Myth turns one page.
“That sounded like screaming,” Relay says.
“It wasn’t me.”
Boba reappears, this time running in the opposite direction.
The training remote has escaped his grip and is pursuing him at head height.
“I need a door!”
Relay slaps the Logistics controls.
The blast door closes.
Boba skids beneath it a second before it seals.
The remote strikes the outside with a metallic clang.
Everyone waits.
The door dents inward.
Relay looks at Boba.
“What did you do to it?”
“Improved the targeting.”
Ghost’s voice comes through the intercom.
“Open the door.”
Boba shakes his head rapidly.
Relay presses the control.
“Traitor,” Boba says.
The door opens.
Ghost catches the training remote in one hand as it flies through. It rotates toward her face. She crushes its primary sensor.
The remote dies a pitiful death.
Ghost looks at Boba.
Boba looks at Relay.
Relay looks at Myth.
Myth is still completing his requisition forms.
Ghost places the broken remote on the table beside Relay’s neatly arranged communications units.
“Repair it.”
Relay blinks. “Me?”
“You’re cooped up.”
“That doesn’t make me an engineer.”
“You complained to three people that Headquarters was too quiet.”
“I did not complain.”
“You asked whether SpecOps had any upcoming missions 11 times.”
“Those were operational inquiries.”
Ghost turns toward the door.
Boba begins following her.
She points toward Relay without looking back.
“Stay.”
Boba stops.
Relay looks at him.
Boba looks at the broken remote.
“Do you know how to fix it?” Relay asks.
“I built it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I can fix it.”
“Without giving it weapons?”
Boba makes a face.
Relay picks up the ruined sensor housing.
“No weapons.”
“One weapon.”
“No.”
“Low power.”
“No.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“The point is training.”
“The point of training is getting better at weapons.”
Relay hates that the logic almost works.
Myth finally looks up.
“If you’re repairing that in Logistics, fill out a hazardous maintenance form.”
Relay closes his eyes.
Boba leans toward him.
“We could classify it as medical equipment.”
Relay opens his eyes again.
Myth points at Boba.
“See? He understands.”
Somewhere farther inside Headquarters, an alarm begins sounding.
Ghost’s voice comes over the building comm.
“Uncontrolled massiff in the east lift. All available personnel respond.”
Relay stands.
Boba grabs the broken remote.
Myth reaches for another manifest.
“Try not to get bitten.”
Relay runs for the door with Boba beside him, the alarm overhead, and Guardsmen shouting down the corridor.
The Guard isn’t the 501st. It has fewer illegal hangar races and more paperwork, more prisons, and apparently more weaponized children.
Still, as Relay joins three squads chasing a massiff through Headquarters, he has to admit one thing.
He might’ve judged the dull moments too quickly.