#honk! is developing opinions on senate fashion and security profiling

[rooksunday]

we met honk! here: username: honk!

widget is a an oc baby corrie who enjoys spreadsheets.

“I don’t recognise this trooper designation, sir, but I think their shift logs must be incorrect. They’re logging more hours than Commander Fox. Could you take a look at the figures before I send them to Central for sign off?”

Thorn set his stylus down and gestured for Widget’s datapad. “Someone probably messed with the formulae again, let me have a look.”

“Yes, sir.”

To Widget’s confusion, Thorn didn’t make any adjustments to the open document, only huffed a short breath and handed the datapad back after scanning it briefly. How could anyone be working longer shifts than Commander Fox without Widget hearing CMO Shiv complaining about it?

“The calculations are correct. Those hours are for our latest hire,” Thorn explained, without explaining anything at all.

“We can hire staff now, sir?” Widget tried to keep the surprise from his voice. Surely scuttlebutt would have reached him about something like that. By the amused tilt of Thorn’s bucket, he figured he’d failed. “Can I ask who this is? In case of questions. It’s a lot of hours.”

Thorn picked up his stylus and twirled it lazily around his fingers—Widget had lost so many styluses trying to emulate that—before making a mark on his ‘pad. He spoke as he flicked between documents.

“MD-8151411, who you may know as Honk!, is our inaugural hire for the Command Security Team.” Thorn paused in his work and glanced up. His tone, already dry, turned parched. “Honk! submitted its application, reviewed its credentials, and confirmed its appointment with scrupulous diligence. I think it checked how jobs work on the holonet, and decided that involving anyone but the candidate in the process would be… inefficient.”

Widget let out a giggle before he could stop himself. He knew the mouse droid had personality—all droids did, but Honk! seemed to be part-buir, part-nexu��but he hadn’t realised it had decided to join the Coruscant Guard.

“So Honk! is a Guard now? And it wants to work security for the Senate?”

“It wants to work security for Commander Fox, specifically, but you can guess how he’d feel about that if he found out. So we’re not going to tell him, are we, trooper?” Thorn asked, as serious as any other order.

Widget shook his head. “No, sir!”

“Good. The figures are fine to go to Central. If Commander Ponds has anything to say about it, forward the message to me. Good work as always, Widget.”

With a brisk salute, Widget turned on his heel, and went to leave Thorn’s office— then he paused and turned back around.

“Sir. About Honk!…”

“What is it?”

“You didn’t say what rank it holds. Should we be saluting it?” Widget asked, partly from curiosity, but mostly, he could admit, from mischief.

In response to the question, Thorn—usually the most reserved of the commanders—let out a groan and slumped slightly over his work. He rubbed his visor with one hand and pointed sharply at Widget with the other.

“I didn’t even— Don’t you dare repeat that question in front of Sergeant Hound. Dismissed, trooper.”

“Sir!”

Widget saluted again and left the office.

Sergeant Hound was usually on patrol with Grizzer around now…