4 BBY Calamity Medbay
"I'm going to skin that chakkar alive!" I groan and shove myself onto my elbows. The doctor-Palpatine-turns immediately from his work and hurries across the medbay floor to stop me before I can get up.
I scowl at him.
"Commander, you should not be up," his face is tight. "You only just got out of bacta treatment and your injuries..." I can feel his eyes trailing to my scarred up arms and chest.
I ignore him and put my feet on the floor anyway. "Forget it." I'm angry. I've been angry for days now, but to unconscious to do anything about it. But I'm not unconscious anymore. Days of bacta treatment and I feel fine. Fine enough to skin a man alive. Specifically Jay, that traitor.
My fist clenches at the very memory of his smirk before he lobbed the first grenade and then my vision flashes to a blank. I blink however, and scan the room, distracted by another though. Myren.
I catch sight of her buttoning up her shirt. She's sitting over by the other medbay bed and looks, in all honesty, better than me. Even her injuries from the past week have healed.
Exhaling, I am thankful for that. I promised to keep her safe after all.
Myren turns to me and I can feel the heat in my face as I look down. I turn it into a grimace and try to shoulder off Palpatine who stubbornly remains, insisting silently that I do not try to leave.
It's Myren, though, that rounds the corner and meets me with her calm stare. Her gaze flickers down, and up, and meets my eyes.
"You should lay down, Commander," she says. "You're still healing."
I open my mouth but I know better than to argue. Myren of all the people here knows more about me than anyone. And refusing will only get me blackmailed later.
Defeated, I slink back to the bed and sit down. Palpatine smirks.
"Clones," he mutters and moves off.
With a roll of my eyes, I lean back. I am sore. But what's truly sore is my ego, and my pride, and my sense of safety. Jay was one of us. I allowed him into the Winterfang team and like a di'kut it nearly got us all killed.
Myren walks up and sits on the edge of the bed. She stares off into space and I can see that she's lost faith too. She hugs her elbows tighter to her sides than she ever has before. I lean forward and put my hand on her shoulder.
Myran blinks and looks back. "No getting up," she insits, and sighs.
"I'm not," I argue, frowning stiffly, but I do sit cross legged behind her and let my hand rest against her shoulder. "I'll catch him," I whisper. "Don't worry I won't let Jay-"
"Jay's dead," Myren says blank. "Rho took him down with a rocket. The Doctor informed me."
"What?" I echo and look around. There's still blast scorches on the floor from the scuffle and the door to the holding cell is damaged, but closed. I lift my hand from Myren's shoulder and rub the side of my head. How much did I forget? I was close to the blast.
"You were unconscious," Myren says, putting my mind at ease. "You...saved my life."
"That's my job."
"Thank you." Myren catches my eye. She smiles and I can see her relax, only slightly. She pulls her knees up onto the bed and turns around so we're cross-legged facing each other. She sits with far better posture. I smile and slouch forward.
Myren folds her arms and I can't help but wonder if she's mocking me slightly, but I realize quickly she's just afraid to be left exposed. "Commander," her voice is quiet. "Be careful...please?"
"About?" I tilt my head. Generally, I'm careful. Okay perhaps there are times, moments, and lapses in my caution, but when it comes to Myren, I have to be careful. I cannot afford to break her or harm her in the least. And I won't let anyone else try either.
Myren unfolds her arms. She rubs at her knuckles. "I mean on missions, and...out there," she gestures vaguely. Myren does nothing vaguely. Her face is a deep blue.
Leaning forward, I hug her. I'm stiff, and sore, and she's a bit hesitant, but there's a comfort in the fact we're equally awkward, equally afraid, and equally aware of the vulnerability we have the universe, and each other.
"I promised I'd protect you," I whisper firmly. "I won't break my word."
#
20 BBY Umbaran Air Base
I don't know how I'm still alive. I drag myself into the makeshift barracks now that the Umbaran's are cleared out. Every muscle in my body hurts, but inside the door I can hear voices. Familiar voices.
"It doesn't matter if I play against you! I'll still lose."
I poke my head around the corner. Hook has his injured leg stretched out across a bench. He and Nyo both have playing cards. Sabbac.
Nyo spots me and his gaze leads Hook to do the same. "Kian!" Hook waves. "Come play with us! We're betting on who gets patrol duty."
"You can't take patrol, you're still injured," Nyo says, again.
"Kian can! Then you won't automatically lose."
I walk over to them and look at the cards. I don't feel like playing. I want to lay down and close my eyes and wake up from a bad dream. They both stare at me, waiting for a decision. I rub at the side of my head and try not to stare at the empty spots.
"Kian?" Nyo's voice is a lot quieter. I look back at him and he's got a hand of cards ready for me.
He's right even if he hasn't said anything. Nyo was always good at that.
"C'mon!" Hook says.
I grab the hand of cards. "Sure, why not." Grabbing a chair, I sit down. "You both know this is a bad idea, though." A small smirk creeps onto my face. "I am the best at Sabbac."
"Can it," Hook rolls his eyes. "You can't always win."
"Just play the game," Nyo sighs. "Both of you."
We laugh and it almost feels natural. I glance at my cards and make a couple of judgements. The first rounds are slow, mostly because Hook keeps making snide remarks and whining about us making him lose just because he's injured.
"That's your own fault!" Nyo eventually snaps back. "Just show us your bluff already, Hook."
"I'm not bluffing." He throws down his cards and it only takes a glance to know. I've won. Again.
"You both suck at this," I toss down my cards. "Who taught you Sabbac anyway?"
Hook slaps my shoulder. "Shut it! We all learned from the same person."
"Oh, so you admit you're just bad at it," I jab back at his arm. "Finally!"
"I am not!"
Nyo groans. "I'm done," he stands up. "This was highly skewed, I hope you both know that," He pointed at us both, jabbing fingers in our faces. We laugh right back at him.
"I'll take the Patrol," Nyo consents and grabs his bucket off the table. Then he stops with a dead serious stare. "Both of you get some sleep."
"You're not our Platoon leader!" Hook cups his hands to his mouth and yells as Nyo stalks to the door.
I slump back. "You know he's right."
"I don't wanna sleep," Hook hauls his leg onto the floor. "Help me up, will you?"
I hop up and drag Hook's arm over my shoulder. He groans but gets up and in a few steps we reach the bunks. I settle Hook on the bed and sit beside him. He stretches both arms in front of him with a yawn.
"That was intense," he sighs. "All of it. How long have we been up?"
"Over eighteen hours." I rub at my face. The exhaustions has been dulling all my senses, including the shock.
"We made it," Hook lays back. He spreads his arms out. "Really made it. Next step, become decorated war veterans and get girlfriends!"
I laugh, just because that's the only thing Hook has ever cared about. Really, all of us. You grow up a lab rat born in a test tube and all you learn to dream about is surviving to see what life is really like. The laughter hurts, because that was our dream. All our dream.
Hook socks me in the back of the arm. "Hey, you got quiet. What's wrong?"
I shake my head. "Just thinking."
"Don't fall asleep thinking, I can't get up if you fall on top of me."
"Can it." I roll my eyes. "I won't fall asleep."
Hook sits up slowly. "You know we're going to survive this, Kian."
I look back. We have the same face, but Hook's hair is short and spiky, unlike mine which is long and wavy. He's got a little scar over his right eye too. Fell out of bed. Truly a battle scar.
"Are we going to survive this?" I ask him.
"We have to," Hook smiles. "Cause you can't get a girlfriend without battle scars."
#
It was almost peaceful for a day. The downtime was mostly spent playing sabbac and trying to forget that we lived in a warzone. It was short, however. The only thing I remembered was a bit of commotion about an execution. I tried to ask our platoon leader but he wouldn't say anything.
Focus on the fight. I pull on my helmet. The Umbaran's have made their next move and it's up to us to hold them off. We must keep this airbase, or else.
"Ready?" Hook asks, his leg recovered enough to walk. He still limps as we move through the Umbaran forest toward the ridge where the enemy is supposed to be hiding.
I nod and look at Nyo. He checks his blaster as we move through the dark foliage. You can't see a thing on this planet. I hate it here.
The platoon leader stops. He holds up a hand. "Watch out," he says. "The enemy is supposedly disguised as clones. Don't trust your eyes."
"Sir!" We chorus back.
We're on the move again. I can hear the fight up ahead. Nyo crouches beside me. The Platoon leader moves in and waves us forward. "Take cover!"
The sound of blasterfire is deafening. I drop to one knee behind a root system that's sticking up and gives me cover. Blaster over it, I fire into the sea of blue laser bolts being traded back and forth. The intel was right. Those are clone blasters.
The Umbaran's disguised themselves as us. I grimace and fire back at anything that moves. My eyes can barely track in the shadows.
Hook crouches behind me. "On your left!" he calls to me. I duck and a rocket buries itself several feet behind us.
"Move!" We lunged over the roots and out of the blast radius, stumbling into the battlefield. Crouching and running we advance toward where the enemy is. I can hear shouting as my back slams into a tree trunk and I haul my blaster up to fire around it.
"Stop shooting!" A voice echo's past me. I look up, distracted, and see the Captain. He barrels past us, his helmet, off? He waves as he turns, shouting back. "We're shooting at our own people! They're clones!"
I drop my blaster. Hook turns. "What?" his voice is faint.
The three of us have ceased fire. The Captain is gone, but we all three peek around as the platoon leader himself stops and looks back at us. It's a pale kind of fear that works it's way into my face as we wait with bated breath.
"Take off your helmets!" The platoon leader shouts back. "Now!"
I jerk off my helmet. It falls to the ground. Nyo reveals his own face, his short hair, and the same hazel eyes we all share. Hook follows suit. All around us the others follow suit. We're removing our helmets and looking across the ridge.
On the other side stare back yellow armored men, with the same faces as us. We share the horror of what happened and bit by bit, the battlefield goes silent.
I drop my blaster. "What have we done?" I gasp. I feel sick.
"We didn't know," Hook growls. "Who told us these guys were Umbaran!"
A 212th Trooper ventures across the break. We all slip out from behind the trees and rocks we've been sheltering behind and look among each other as if we've seen ghosts.
"We were told you were Umbaran's in disguise," one of the 212th men says as he walks up to us.
"So were we," Nyo breaths.
"The others came from...above." Hook looks up and his gaze meets mine.
I swallow hard. "But why?"
The past few days were quiet, but one thing stuck with me. Ever since General Skywalker left us under General Krell we'd marched till our boots were worn through, we dove into things headfirst. It was like everything was just one big simulation, except everyone around us was dying.
We were nothing but pawns, and now this. My head spins. I sit down on the ground and Nyo puts his hand on my head. "What do we do?" he asks.
"We can't just slaughter each other!" The 212th trooper hoists his blaster. "We have a real war to fight!"
"Listen up!" The captains voice drowns everything out. I stagger back to my feet and look over.
The Captain walks back toward us, his face set firm and his eyes a bit more hollow than they were before, but burning with anger. I am at attention before I can think as are those around me. We all are, waiting to know where we go next.
The Captain looks us each in the eyes and the feeling is infectious. "This might be treason," he warns us, "so if you're not with me, speak now."
The silence is resounding.
The captain nods. "I know where these orders came from, and I know now, General Krell has been using us from the start. That ends here and now. Am I understood?"
I join in the battle cry. "Sir, yes, sir!"