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tiamatschild) wrote2016-05-07 11:21 pm
tiamatschild) wrote2016-05-07 11:21 pm
FIC: "Triangulation Point" (G) Star Wars The Clone Wars: Secret Missions
Title: Triangulation Point
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Secret Missions – Ryder Windham
Word Count: 1147
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: CT-5177 | Chatterbox/Lalo Gunn
Summary: Early in the Hasty Harpy's journey from Kynachi to Chiss space, Chatterbox tries to figure out what exactly Captain Gunn is after.
Warnings: Mention of incest.
Notes: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Secret Missions is a four volume serial of middle-grade reader spin offs of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars CGI animated series. They're written by Ryder Windham and best described as 'uneven': the propaganda newsreel style of the show's introductory voiceovers does not work very well as a sustained narrative pose, but Windham's characters are delightful. This story is set near the beginning of the second volume, Curse of the Black Sun Pirates.
Triangulation Point
The trouble was, Chatterbox thought, that he didn't know what Captain Gunn wanted.
He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing, sitting in the Hasty Harpy's co-pilot's seat as if he could possibly belong there. In one sense, of course, he was where he was because Captain Gunn had brought him there, had sent Sharp back to find him, and when he'd finally made it up the connecting corridor (he'd drawn it out, he'd measured his steps, he'd timed it just the polite side of outright insolence) told him people strapped in in her cockpit or she heard about why not. He didn't have a why not, so he'd done it.
That was how he'd got there, but it wasn't why Gunn had brought him. He was trying to figure that. The shape of her profile against the blurred light of hyperspace hadn't been especially informative yet, but at least it was nice to look at. She had a good nose.
“If you really don't want to be here, you can leave,” Gunn said, suddenly, sharp and aggressive and all out of tune with the situation. She did that a lot. He didn't have the pattern of it.
He blinked at her.
Gunn bit her lip. “Look,” she said, “I really want you up here. I wanted to, I don't know, show you something about how I live. Show off. But I get you here and I think maybe I'm not taking no for an answer. I don't want to be that kind of creep. So.”
Chatterbox considered that.
“I don't know what I'd be saying 'no' to,” he said.
Gunn relaxed in a rush of breath she must have been holding, going almost alarmingly slack. “Yeah, she said. “Okay, good.” Which was less informative a reaction than he'd hoped for. But before he could work out if she was going to be more forthcoming she seemed to remember what ligaments were for, sat up straight, and said, “So, you ever get any training on a rig like my Harpy?”
He shook his head. Until Kynachi he'd never seen a ship like the Harpy, let alone got a chance to handle one. The GAR didn't maintain a fleet of small, over gunned and over powered smuggler's freighters. Besides, he wasn't tracked for flight training, even if they had.
Gunn grinned at him. “Wanna learn?”
He did. He nodded. Came up into an attentive, open posture – 'Teach me,' his body said, without him having to speak.
Gunn lit up, and flung herself into talking him through how to fly her bird. She maneuvered through her explanations as wildly as she likely did through atmosphere on anything other than a sedately legal trip with one injured clone trooper and one extremely small and shiny Jedi on board, if anything he'd ever read about smugglers had a remote basis in fact. He was designed and trained to learn, and to learn the first time, but even so it was all he could do to keep up, to gain at least a sense of how it all fit together, how Gunn understood her ship.
He still didn't know what she wanted. The way she was acting now, if she'd been a brother he'd say she was wanting a partner. Somebody to know the things she knew, somebody who could and would back her. A permanent partner, somebody who'd follow you into the field, or lead you there, or go beside you, and maybe sneak into your bunk at night or the other way around. Chatterbox guessed he could understand that. This operation of hers seemed like a lot of work for one person, and he supposed people who weren't clones felt better when they had someone to rely on, too.
So.
But she had to know he couldn't be that. He was GAR until you got to the copyright on his genetics, and there he was Kamino. And she wasn't.
Kamino wasn't the problem. Kamino didn't own him until he died, and he likely wouldn't be much use to Gunn at that point, so it wasn't worth worrying about. But the Grand Army of the Republic's claim on him wasn't just money and licensing and idiosyncratic legal systems of a notoriously secretive planetary government. The GAR had a hold on him in blood and bone and shared breath, in loyalties he wouldn't break even if he could figure out how. He belonged with his brothers: that was the most basic fact of his universe. Their solidarity was the central binding force of his life, as fundamental and obvious as gravity. It was the only emotional tie that would never go away, that was always reciprocal. As long as they were GAR, he was GAR.
Gunn wasn't GAR and wasn't ever going to be GAR. A clone might partner up with somebody natural born, but Chatterbox didn't think somebody who wasn't GAR could partner up with somebody who was. It wouldn't work. It was a dead end. It wasn't going to happen.
But Chatterbox paid attention to Gunn anyway. Because he wanted to learn. Because she was a decent person, he thought, and maybe he liked the idea of being her partner, even though that couldn't be where this was going, because no one would start a thing like that if it wasn't going anywhere.
Chatterbox figured he could be all right with that, if Gunn wasn't heading where he thought he could maybe want, if she was serious about taking 'no' for an answer. He thought she was. If she forgot, well, he'd bring it up and press it home until the shame backed her off. He could make 'no' stick, if he had to. Until then, he was willing to let her pursue her agenda. He still didn't know what she wanted, and that made him uneasy, but he could afford to take the time to find out. Kynachi to Chiss space was a long jaunt.
A long jaunt. And a long jaunt back to Coruscant.
“You try!” said Gunn. “You can't activate a second course on the navi-computer when we're already in hyperspace, no matter what you do, so even if you do mess up it's all right. But I think you won't. Pick somewhere you want to go, and chart a course.”
Somewhere you want to go. Chatterbox shook his head at her, not bothering to stop the smile. She really didn't understand his life at all. He reached out to chart a course, following the steps she'd showed him, knowing he was much less likely to make a misstep with her ship than with her, and with his own self. But he knew how to avoid that: take his time. Take the time he needed, watch and wait and listen.
He'd find out what Gunn wanted. And maybe, when he knew that, he'd know what he wanted, too.
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Secret Missions – Ryder Windham
Word Count: 1147
Rating: G
Characters/Pairing: CT-5177 | Chatterbox/Lalo Gunn
Summary: Early in the Hasty Harpy's journey from Kynachi to Chiss space, Chatterbox tries to figure out what exactly Captain Gunn is after.
Warnings: Mention of incest.
Notes: Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Secret Missions is a four volume serial of middle-grade reader spin offs of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars CGI animated series. They're written by Ryder Windham and best described as 'uneven': the propaganda newsreel style of the show's introductory voiceovers does not work very well as a sustained narrative pose, but Windham's characters are delightful. This story is set near the beginning of the second volume, Curse of the Black Sun Pirates.
Triangulation Point
The trouble was, Chatterbox thought, that he didn't know what Captain Gunn wanted.
He wasn't entirely sure what he was doing, sitting in the Hasty Harpy's co-pilot's seat as if he could possibly belong there. In one sense, of course, he was where he was because Captain Gunn had brought him there, had sent Sharp back to find him, and when he'd finally made it up the connecting corridor (he'd drawn it out, he'd measured his steps, he'd timed it just the polite side of outright insolence) told him people strapped in in her cockpit or she heard about why not. He didn't have a why not, so he'd done it.
That was how he'd got there, but it wasn't why Gunn had brought him. He was trying to figure that. The shape of her profile against the blurred light of hyperspace hadn't been especially informative yet, but at least it was nice to look at. She had a good nose.
“If you really don't want to be here, you can leave,” Gunn said, suddenly, sharp and aggressive and all out of tune with the situation. She did that a lot. He didn't have the pattern of it.
He blinked at her.
Gunn bit her lip. “Look,” she said, “I really want you up here. I wanted to, I don't know, show you something about how I live. Show off. But I get you here and I think maybe I'm not taking no for an answer. I don't want to be that kind of creep. So.”
Chatterbox considered that.
“I don't know what I'd be saying 'no' to,” he said.
Gunn relaxed in a rush of breath she must have been holding, going almost alarmingly slack. “Yeah, she said. “Okay, good.” Which was less informative a reaction than he'd hoped for. But before he could work out if she was going to be more forthcoming she seemed to remember what ligaments were for, sat up straight, and said, “So, you ever get any training on a rig like my Harpy?”
He shook his head. Until Kynachi he'd never seen a ship like the Harpy, let alone got a chance to handle one. The GAR didn't maintain a fleet of small, over gunned and over powered smuggler's freighters. Besides, he wasn't tracked for flight training, even if they had.
Gunn grinned at him. “Wanna learn?”
He did. He nodded. Came up into an attentive, open posture – 'Teach me,' his body said, without him having to speak.
Gunn lit up, and flung herself into talking him through how to fly her bird. She maneuvered through her explanations as wildly as she likely did through atmosphere on anything other than a sedately legal trip with one injured clone trooper and one extremely small and shiny Jedi on board, if anything he'd ever read about smugglers had a remote basis in fact. He was designed and trained to learn, and to learn the first time, but even so it was all he could do to keep up, to gain at least a sense of how it all fit together, how Gunn understood her ship.
He still didn't know what she wanted. The way she was acting now, if she'd been a brother he'd say she was wanting a partner. Somebody to know the things she knew, somebody who could and would back her. A permanent partner, somebody who'd follow you into the field, or lead you there, or go beside you, and maybe sneak into your bunk at night or the other way around. Chatterbox guessed he could understand that. This operation of hers seemed like a lot of work for one person, and he supposed people who weren't clones felt better when they had someone to rely on, too.
So.
But she had to know he couldn't be that. He was GAR until you got to the copyright on his genetics, and there he was Kamino. And she wasn't.
Kamino wasn't the problem. Kamino didn't own him until he died, and he likely wouldn't be much use to Gunn at that point, so it wasn't worth worrying about. But the Grand Army of the Republic's claim on him wasn't just money and licensing and idiosyncratic legal systems of a notoriously secretive planetary government. The GAR had a hold on him in blood and bone and shared breath, in loyalties he wouldn't break even if he could figure out how. He belonged with his brothers: that was the most basic fact of his universe. Their solidarity was the central binding force of his life, as fundamental and obvious as gravity. It was the only emotional tie that would never go away, that was always reciprocal. As long as they were GAR, he was GAR.
Gunn wasn't GAR and wasn't ever going to be GAR. A clone might partner up with somebody natural born, but Chatterbox didn't think somebody who wasn't GAR could partner up with somebody who was. It wouldn't work. It was a dead end. It wasn't going to happen.
But Chatterbox paid attention to Gunn anyway. Because he wanted to learn. Because she was a decent person, he thought, and maybe he liked the idea of being her partner, even though that couldn't be where this was going, because no one would start a thing like that if it wasn't going anywhere.
Chatterbox figured he could be all right with that, if Gunn wasn't heading where he thought he could maybe want, if she was serious about taking 'no' for an answer. He thought she was. If she forgot, well, he'd bring it up and press it home until the shame backed her off. He could make 'no' stick, if he had to. Until then, he was willing to let her pursue her agenda. He still didn't know what she wanted, and that made him uneasy, but he could afford to take the time to find out. Kynachi to Chiss space was a long jaunt.
A long jaunt. And a long jaunt back to Coruscant.
“You try!” said Gunn. “You can't activate a second course on the navi-computer when we're already in hyperspace, no matter what you do, so even if you do mess up it's all right. But I think you won't. Pick somewhere you want to go, and chart a course.”
Somewhere you want to go. Chatterbox shook his head at her, not bothering to stop the smile. She really didn't understand his life at all. He reached out to chart a course, following the steps she'd showed him, knowing he was much less likely to make a misstep with her ship than with her, and with his own self. But he knew how to avoid that: take his time. Take the time he needed, watch and wait and listen.
He'd find out what Gunn wanted. And maybe, when he knew that, he'd know what he wanted, too.