Apples Don't Fall Far

“—and then Tansu deployed the stupid escape pod early and we ended up on Castell! But we ran into a guy with a ship that got us off the planet safely.”

“After Talin pulled a gun on him. He almost shot me!”

“He missed.” Talin glared at her sister, then back at the camera to reassure the recipients of this holovid. “He missed. She’s fine.”

Tansu mouthed something about not being fine in the background, but moved on to the next stop in their exciting journey. “Then we got to Jedha, and saved Cousin Kyric.”

“Tansu got arrested.”

“But no record! I got released. Onderon was nice. Talin got shot!”

“But Aunteme healed me!”

The entire recording went on like this. Each girl carved out a sentence of the retelling to provide excitement, tattling on one another and quickly covering up each negative exploit with a positive. Their sentences ricocheted between trauma to triumph without taking a breath. Some names the Treicolts new, old contenders like Auteme (who couldn't be blamed for her stowaways! There was no way she knew!), Romi Jade (she'd known they were around and gifted them a Force imbued stone!), Dracken Pryce (they were going to meet his son!) , Gabriel Pryce (very grumpy) and Kyric (he's workin' a lot, teachin' us all he knows). And some newer friendly names, like Damien Dooku , Dax and Talsin Lota and then some starkly unfriendly references — not names, but descriptions of their run-ins with Sinestra and Brutalis en route to the Hidden Heart Enclave.

They were careful about not mentioning Nero Drake 's busted up speeder, and the subsequent shockboxing scheme they'd concoted to come up with credits to pay him back. Their parents and siblings did not hear the names of Dante Iblis and his no-good manager, or Morrow the sudden star on this recording.

Somehow, between passing the blame between one another they managed to recount the excitement of the Coruscant Underworld in explicit detail that left them breathless and goofy-grinned.

“And cousin Kyric’s got this new Lightswon thing he’s doin’ with his master Inuhsookay — ”The Atrisian name for Inosuke was horribly butchered by their backwater drawl.

“—named one ‘o their Strike teams Treicolt!! Isn’t that cool? For y’all!”

Their excitement was palpable, even if it was starsystems away from those who the message was recorded for. On Concord Dawn, Loske, Maynard, Kara, Vyrin and Waylon would see the hugeness of their eyes and the overwhelming joy in their toothsome smiles.

“We love you!”

“We miss you.”

A beat or two passed where the girls just looked at the recorder in silence, as if they could see their family looking back at them. One chewed on their lip, the other fiddled with their fingers.

“We dug up some ‘ol X-02’s, and spray painted ‘em with Saber Squadron’s symbol.” Tansu started.

Talin was squinting at something unseen in the distance. She drew in a breath. “We’re gonna be just like you when Dee-Ee shows up on Coruscant. We’ll protect one another and the galaxy. All at once. We’ll make you real proud, be heroes like you."

"You showed us how to do it."

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