The Wolf Pack

Chapter 37

It was happening again, Kriari knew it was happening again. She tried her hardest to stay focused on the task at hand. She tried her best no to let her feelings cloud her vision, even though all she could think of was how it was happening again. She had lost a lot of troopers last time, and had only managed to save two. But here, now, when only two lives were at stake, the dread of losing them both somehow seemed heavier.

Kriari wondered how people, Jedi, in the GAR reamined unattached to their comrades. They fought together, ate together, hell, she had even been sharing the fresher with these men the last three months. She knew more about these men than she cared to admit and she wasn't put off by the idea. She really needed to talk to her masters about this, if she didn't, it would start getting in her way. If there was something Kriari hated, it was being the cause of her own hardships and setbacks.

But none of that was on her mind as she jumped from one rooftop to the next and threw all caution to the wind just to save the lives of two troopers. Just, what an awful choice of words. She had to admit her efforts were completely foolish in the eyes of everyone around her, even the clones knew when to let go of someone. But Kriari had learned to love and appreciate every single one of her comrades' lives, and she wasn't about to give up on any of them.

Kriari Foreas knew, she knew she was setting herself up for failure the second she decided to care about soldiers. She was a Commander in a war, she should have been ready to lose all of them at any given moment. But still she clung to them. If it was because she pitied them or herself she hadn't figured out yet, the only thing she knew with every fiber of her being, is that -even when her mind told her it was wrong- her spirit kept pulling her forward.

So she ran. Not to save two troopers, not to save the information they had gathered, but to save two friends.

But she was late.

Kriari had always prided herself in being punctual, on time, as a sign of respect to the person expecting her. This was the second time she had been late, and the consequences were very similar to the first time it had happened. She didn't really think before she acted. When she reached the collapsed wing of the building and saw the blaster her first reaction was to reach for the force. Kriari Force Pushed Clovis Rush's arm to one side as he pulled the trigger, and then charged him. She didn't dare pull her lightsaber out, she had exposed herself too much already, but it really didn't matter. With a punch to the gut and a roundhouse kick to the temple, the traitor went down unconscious.

It took her entire training to make herself turn around. She knew she wouldn't like what she'd find, but an assessment of the damage was necessary, and she owed her friends as much. Sinker's body was face down on the ground, the open wound on his skull was still steaming lazily from where the plasma had burned his brain. Kriari almost threw up, not because the sight made her queasy, no, because her friend had been shot from the back. He had been murdered.

It was Art's groan of pain that brought her back to reality. Clovis' blast had hit his shoulder, thank the Force, but his legs were trapped under a huge portion of the ceiling, and didn't look like they could be recovered.

"Art, I-"

"Shut it, here," he said, attempting to give me a metal cylinder. A copy of the machine's plans. "My legs are a lost cause and so am I. Take it."

Kriari was sad and angry and felt an overwhelming amount of guilt, even if she knew it wasn't her fault.

"You shut up, Kalil's on his way, you are getting out of he-"

"Will you listen to me for once?" he snapped, the Force around him told of such hatred, such anger, such resentment. Kriari had never felt anything like it, not from him. "They'll decommission me even if I make it out. Take the damn plans and leave me with that blaster, I want a soldier's way out."